Interplanetary Defense Empire
by tmb1112
Summary: 5 years after the defeat of Majin Buu, a new threat appears in the universe that wipes out most of Earth's special forces. Now it's up to Gohan and Trunks to train a new generation of warriors to protect the Earth from the incoming invasion. T for violence, death. R/R
1. Chapter 1

I don't own DBZ

**A/n** I'm trying out a new story I had an idea for. Mainly Trunks and Gohan but the OCs will have big roles. No GT, Mr. Buu, or Uub.

From a distant part of the universe a new threat appeared around five years after the defeat of Majin Buu. The group was known as the Interplanetary Defense Empire, they took over planets on the basis that they were protecting them from others invading them. King Kai heard about them from South Kai and told him that Goku could easily take them on. They'd all seen what the universe's greatest hero could do but the new group was so mysterious, none of them knew much about them. Either way, the North God called Goku to his planet and the man came within the second using Instant Transmission.

The Saiyan from Earth was told where he could find them and he teleported there. The entire universe felt it as multiple power levels could be felt, including Goku as a Super Saiyan 3. The terrifying problem was that the other powers were trumping Goku's and none but King Kai could see what happened in the distant galaxy.

For the first time ever, the God came down to the mortal world and grouped together all the powerful fighters of the Earth. His message was dire, Goku was killed, and before he started fighting he foolishly introduced himself as Son Goku from Earth. This time there was no wishing him back even if it was possible, the man made it clear that the next time he died it was to be for good. The enemy knew what planet they lived on, so Vegeta plainly stated they kill them before the aliens get to their home. The Prince, both of Goku's sons, Piccolo, and Krillin all agreed to go and avenge their fallen friend. Trunks wanted to go as well but Dende asked that one of them stay behind to protect the planet and Trunks drew the short straw.

As the fleet of four Capsule Corp. spaceships prepared to lift off, the sons of Kakarott had to share one, Goten came over to his best friend and patted him on the back, "Don't worry about it, we'll kick their asses and be back in a jiffy. I'll tell you all about it when we get home." The ships lifted off into the air and Trunks never saw his best friend again.

In space the Interplanetary Defense Empire or IDE, were already on their way to Earth seeing how a planet with the capability to produce such an amazing fighter must be subjected to their rule. Trunks was with the catfish looking God on Kami's Lookout as the ships approached each other. The IDE had an entire armada of ships each as big as Frieza's and a mothership as large as Meta Cooler's. With one hand on the Kai's shoulder, he clearly saw his twelve year old friend and his older brother get out of their landed ship in the atmosphere of a orange planet where the fleet was hovering. Powers began rising but the battle was instantly one-sided and it looked as if everything was going terribly. All the Capsule Corp. ships were shot down onto the planet below and Trunks gasped as he thought it was all over. Then something spectacular happened, Vegeta stepped out of the rubble and shot a Super Saiyan 2 Final flash into space damaging the fleet irreparably. The mothership started crashing down to the enormous planet below and Vegeta flew around the crashing ship with a boy in his hands.

Gohan was barely breathing after going up against one of the admirals of a ship and knew that he'd only beaten him by a small margin. Vegeta's destruction of their fleet angered these aliens and the Prince chucked Gohan into the distance. The twenty two year old passed out in mid-air before slamming into the ground. As Vegeta floated above the crashed armada he saw very pissed off aliens coming out of the wreckage. He didn't recognize the species at all and had no idea where they originated from.

His power was depleted as the enemy forces started coming at him. He was not alone though and out of the rubble shot Goten, Piccolo, and even Krillin. They fought desperately but Trunks knew it from the start that was all over. Supreme Kai wouldn't answer any of his calls as he pleaded to be sent there as well but besides Shin, Goku was the the only one with the ability to get him there.

The lavender haired boy was still shouting for someone to send him there when he realized Goten was the only one left. He'd watched his friends and his father fall to the different colored, different sized aliens as they got slaughtered. He was helpless and fell to his knees knowing the fate that was about to befall his best friend. Goten couldn't hold his ascended Super Saiyan mode any longer and his hair went black as his eyes closed. The boy hovered in the air and the enemies charged blasts all around him. Suddenly his eyes shot open and none of the aliens knew who he was talking to but Goten started speaking, "It's alright Trunks, you couldn't have done anything. Just remember New Namek has dragon balls too, not all is lost."

"Namek? We exterminated that whole race of slug people on our way here." Goten spun around to face a hooded man behind him who was charging a particularly large blue blast. His demeanor fell since the people on Namek had already been brought back, which meant the Earth's dragon balls couldn't do anything about it. "They just wouldn't listen, I hope the people of Earth are more reasonable."

The thirteen year old son of Vegeta watched as Goten was obliterated. The aliens had no idea who he was talking to in his last moments but it seemed like the rabble of a boy about to die. He still couldn't look away, he had to remember what each and every one of these aliens looked like so he knew which ones to make suffer. The leader in the hood turned to one of the subordinates on his left, "Damage report."

The short red alien that Trunks remembered impaled Krillin with his spiky left arm started speaking. His voice was high and squeaky, "Whatever attack the older one with the spiky hair used completely got past our shields. The machinery is fried, and on this desert planet there won't be a lot of supplies or resources for us to fix the ship. Aside from that we've lost over two thirds of the fleet and only three surrounding ships managed to escape the blast." He paused for a second not wishing to anger his boss further, "Also Admiral K'luk'fruk was killed during the battle."

The short red man looked down and saw a green fist sticking out of his stomach. The leader in the hood had appeared behind him and in his rage punched straight through him. The half-Saiyan watching was angered that he wouldn't get the chance to do it himself now. "To think that someone of K'luk'fruk's caliber could be defeated by these Earthlings. Hmmm," he pointed at some hovering men around him, "While most of us stay here, you will take two ships and head to Earth to prepare for the rest of the fleet's arrival. We have no idea how long it will take us to get there but the third ship," he pointed at a different group of mainly purple aliens, "will go back to WZU8 and inform the King on what has happened. Request additional ships, supplies for repairs, and more men. This Earth will be a challenge but it will be a prize."

At this point King Kai cut the transmission and Trunks released him. "I'm sorry, now it is up to you." The Kai said, serious for one of the first times ever, actually dreading the doom of the Earth without its heroes. He was always able to make jokes in the bleakest times but with all the Namekians killed besides Dende, there really was no hope besides the boy in front of him. There was something in his eyes though, it made it seem that putting his faith in this boy wasn't so far fetched.

"I will avenge them, if I can't do it by myself, I'll get others to help me. That ship was too damaged to get fixing and to Earth within the next year. All I ask if you is that you keep me posted on their progress King Kai." The responsible tone coming from Trunks faltered and his lip quivered. The realization was setting in, everything was up to him. Everyone else was dead and they wouldn't be coming back. 'Gohan, Father, Goten, I should have been there.' The God had no words for the boy he barely knew but nodded and slowly faded away back to Otherworld.

Gohan was on the orange planet still and was easily avoiding all his enemies that roamed the surface. The planet was twice the size of Earth and they couldn't sense his power. They also couldn't sense the other powers on the planet. After patching himself up and keeping himself calm as to not foolishly throw his life away because they killed his brother, Gohan searched out the other inhabitants of the planet. His enemies weren't able to sense energy but they did power up fast and effortlessly. His fighting style was more refined but they were so powerful, it was unreal. When he reached the residents of the planet he realized it was an old PTO base that had a group of aliens unknowing that Frieza and his family were slaughtered years ago. After Gohan explained it to them, he stole a space pod and started rushing home. He took a wide arc around the planet so as not to alert the IDE. He had felt the alien ships leave for Earth and had to stop them.

As Trunks was explaining to Yamcha, Dende, and Tien what happened, they all looked up in the sky feeling the powers getting close to the planet. "Those must be the two ships he sent. If our friends and family could destroy an entire fleet, we can stop two measly ships." The hoverships floated above the Lookout as they came down to the planet and warriors started bailing out of the ship and flying down to the platform. It was a battlefield and Trunks realized how wrong he was, his father had caught them off guard, these were all extremely powerful and he shouldn't have involved the others. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one blue alien with huge horns land a kick to Tien's chest before another one followed up by slamming down on his head. The triclops crashed through the floor of the platform unconscious and fell out of the sky what would have been miles had a certain samurai not grabbed him and pulled him into Korin's temple.

The boy finished another one of the invaders but he felt Yamcha's energy disappear and spun to find the alien's leader with his arm extended. He'd swiped clean through the man's neck and his head fell to the ground no longer connected to his body. As the guy ripped off his cloak Trunks saw a yellow creature that looked to be completely covered in scales. His power was something Trunks couldn't compare with and he took a step back. The man laughed at him and cackled like a hyena, "If you weren't such a baby then the black and green ones might still be alive." Trunks looked over to where Dende and Mr. Popo were standing in front of the palace and suddenly the yellow creature was behind them. Before he could even shout 'no!' the alien shot both of his arms through the Guardians' stomachs.

Their powers diminished quickly and all traces of ki left their bodies. "Ahh, not a lot of power for me in those two, you'll be a much better snack." A long bumpy purple tongue unraveled out of the alien's mouth and he started charging at Trunks. The boy was alone, surrounded by still more than half of the crew of the alien ships. All he could do was fight so he got in his stance and let all his anger come to the surface as he blocked the first punch.

Fists and kicks came from all around him but all of a sudden the tongue shot out from nowhere and wrapped around his legs, throwing him to the floor. He got slammed over and over until he spun in mid-air and the yellow creature spun with him, crashing to the ground. A drop of purple blood dripped from the corner of the alien's lip and he kicked it away. "Kill him," Trunks was exhausted and couldn't take it anymore, it was all over.

Then he felt something, the others didn't notice but a huge power was getting closer fast. One of the approaching crew followed the boy's gaze to the sky and pointed up. A Saiyan space pod slammed into the Lookout and no one moved. The door lifted up in a cloud of smoke and Gohan stepped out. A smile appeared on Trunks' face for the first time in weeks and he turned on the nearest alien, transforming him into a pile of dust.

Three attackers charged Gohan at the same time but he dodged all their attacks and landed finishing blows in one hit each. "You," the yellow thing seethed, "You're the one who killed K'luk'fruk aren't you? He was my friend," the bulky yellow monster sprinted forward and kicked the boy in the stomach sending him back several feet but still standing.

"He was much stronger than you," Gohan reached forward fast and grabbed the yellow man by the tongue. He was using his Mystic powers and Trunks was a Super Saiyan 2 and these aliens couldn't stop them. With a lot of force, Gohan spun around and threw the screaming yellow alien up at one of the ships before shouting, "MASENKO HA!" And annihilating both of them. The remaining invaders knew they'd lost but Trunks was fueled by rage and Gohan was as well even if he could control it better. They destroyed the rest of the aliens and then went back to their base forms, panting like crazy. They were at full power the whole time they fought which seemed like a slaughter to the aliens but seemed like a really close fight to both half-Saiyans.

Later on while the two of them sat on top of the Lookout, Tien came back up and saw the destruction. None of them knew how the process worked but they all knew the Earth needed a Guardian. Both Gohan and Trunks were still kids even if Gohan was in his twenties. The older man knew this and closed all three eyes as he accepted his fate and volunteered to be the new Guardian of the Earth. They all agreed to meet back up in a month to discuss the alien threat that would still be coming but for now they had to be with their families. Gohan went back to his crying mother who'd lost her baby boy and husband again, this time for good. Videl lived with him now next door to his old family but they figured Chi Chi shouldn't be alone and brought her to Ox King's to live. There were no living Namekians left in the universe, and that meant no more dragon balls which meant dead was dead. Trunks went back to his mother and newborn sister to help them through Vegeta's death.

Tien was spoken to once he was alone by Piccolo through King Kai. He explained how he knew all about the process of becoming Guardian after merging with Kami. The triclops drank some special water inside the palace and was told he'd live forever but still get older. It wasn't immortality because he could still be killed it was just old age and disease wouldn't be a problem anymore. Tien had Chaozu come up and become the new assistant since Popo was dead and his friend was also able to drink the water.

After a month the three fighters met on top of the Lookout along with Bulma, Yajirobe and Korin, and Chaozu. They discussed what to do about the aliens and Bulma offered to build more ships though she refused to let Trunks go. They all thought it wasn't the best idea because the Earth was already in bad shape without the rest of them. There just weren't enough of them left to handle an entire Empire if they did rebuild and came for the Earth.

Tien had an idea and being the new Guardian he figured it was his job to save the world. "We can't do this alone, there is no telling when they'll come to this planet but based on what Trunks told us they could be here anytime from one year to fifty years from now. It seems like Frieza has been replaced as the ruler of the universe and this time the person in charge is much stronger. There are no more 'full' Saiyans and we can't rely on just the two of you to save the world. No, if we're going to fight them we'll need what they have, an army."

"You think humans could be able to fight them?" Trunks asked skeptically. He avoided calling them weaklings because he knew Tien was no wimp and had just seen him handle himself in a fight. The bald man had taken down two of them before he was knocked out.

"If I could suggest," they looked down at the cat with the staff, "starting training as a young child is the best way to produce great fighters."

Bulma looked angered, "You want to take children and breed them into warriors? Rip them from their parents arms?"

"No no no," the cat wiped some sweat from his brow. "Just like Goku, Krillin, and Yamcha, these three here," he pointed at the other humans, "children without any parents, with nowhere to go. We give them purpose, tell them they're saving the planet and train them to do so." They all agreed and the plan was set. It was time for the Earth to be protected by Earthlings and who knows, maybe it'll be a full fifty years before the armada could get back to fighting capacity and be ready to take on a planet they knew they would face heavy resistance on.

The first fighter didn't kill any of them and those he defeated he let live. Besides the one who killed K'luk'fruk, he was the most powerful. Then there was the one who devastated the fleet and if there were more fighters like these on Earth, they would need to be better prepared, more trained for the next invasion.

Trunks left the Lookout and couldn't help thinking about his best friend and how he'd failed him. 'Don't worry Goten, I'll kick all their asses for you. Your death won't be in vain," the troubled thirteen year old shot off for home so he could set the GR as high as he could handle and then raise it fifty times that.

ONE YEAR LATER

Gohan was training with Trunks, both of them as high up in Super Saiyan 2 form as possible. They fought in the sky only because their ground battles were becoming dangerous to people all over the planet. Trunks ended it with a Big Bang Attack that overpowered Gohan's Masenko and they laid down far below on the grass to rest. Their fights ended with a different winner every time though Gohan did win more often. He never fought with Trunks as Mystic because if the boy couldn't match him as a Super Saiyan 2, he wouldn't even compete.

"It's not working Gohan," the teenager spoke. "I haven't found anyone willing to take on training, and even if we did, would we have time to train them between all our training?" Gohan looked deep in thought as he had been having similar thoughts. There was one kid who seemed promising but he wasn't dedicated enough and couldn't take a little bit of pain before backing out.

"You know what we should do?" Gohan started as he sat up. "We don't need to keep it a secret any longer," he received an odd look from the Briefs boy. "I'm serious Trunks, if we told people the situation, they could search us out and if they are dedicated enough then they'll be able to handle the training. We still go around looking but this way we don't have to check every person on the planet." Trunks nodded and he figured his mom could set something up.

Later that week Trunks met up with his friend and mentor at a television studio where they were supposed to go on live television in a minute. Being one of the richest people in the world, Bulma was able to get every station to air their message at the same time so everyone would hear it. "How is she?" Trunks asked as he hugged the Son boy.

"Much better, they're both doing great." Trunks nodded, glad his friend's daughter was alright. There were some complications with the birth and Gohan wouldn't allow Videl to get rid of the tail. With Goten and his dad gone, with Vegeta dead, Pan needed to continue the Saiyan race and be as strong as possible for what was coming. The doctors kept urging him to reconsider but he wouldn't hear of it. The two of them went into the tv station and had cameras put in their faces as they lifted off the ground. Trunks explained how the world was under constant threat from an alien invasion and how we need to be prepared for when they get here. They offered to teach anyone interested in saving the planet martial arts and told them where they could find them.

The whole world was in shock for several weeks after Mr. Satan confirmed the message to be true and everyone instantly believed it. The Saiyans were wrong and instead of people flocking to them to help, they hid away in fear. They figured they'd continue looking for people willing to train and leave that message out there for anyone who wants to listen.


	2. Chapter 2

I don't own DBZ

sc- scene change tl- time lapse

"Get back here!" The little blonde boy darted in and out of people's legs on the crowded marketplace. He had two shiny red apples in his hands and had to get away from the mean stand owner he just took them from. His yellow hair went just above his shoulders, hiding his ears and he had bangs that went down to the tops of his eyes. "Where'd he go?" The shop clerk scratched the back of his head as he did a three sixty but the little boy was nowhere in sight.

As the man walked away, Strax popped back out of a large basket and continued down the street with the evidence in his pockets. He turned down an alleyway that led into an even skinnier alley that he walked all the way to the end of. There was a hole in the wall and he snuck in where he found a coughing little girl curled up in a blanket, "Anna look, I've brought apples." She had beautiful brown hair that went down halfway down her back but her face was covered by the blanket as she was very cold. Her blue eyes poked out and she see the apple hovering in front of her. She grabbed the fruit and started chewing down into it.

Strax was thinking about his day and how all he did was steal from that man. "You ever feel like we should be doing something more?" He threw it out there without expecting an answer from his sister.

"I _feel _like one apple isn't enough and that _something more _should better be food." He smiled at her and tossed her his own apple as he pretended to rummage around for the not real third apple in his pocket. Anna thanked him and dove into her food. She only noticed once she finished the second apple that he was not eating the third and she looked down at the floor. "There's no more isn't there?" He shook his head.

"I've got some," both kids jumped up and Strax bolted in front of Anna as he spun to face the intruder. Oddly there wasn't anyone standing behind him. "Snap, I could've just killed this girl here and you did nothing to stop it." Strax spun around and behind his little sister stood a tall, white skinned man with purple hair. Anna turned around as well, shaking violently until she saw the friendly looking man in the Capsule Corp. jacket. Her older brother was not fooled by his appearance though and grabbed Anna by the arm before pulling her back behind him.

"Who are you?" The boy asked lifting an eyebrow. The man didn't have a weapon but he was ripped and Strax was hoping he didn't actually come to kill them.

_This kid's got spunk_, Trunks grinned. "Where are your families?"

"Dead," Anna spoke for the first time and Trunks looked down into her eyes. She cast her eyes away when they met and started shifting her feet.

"Hey," the man turned back to the kid, "I asked you who you are?" His voice stayed sturdy the whole time he spoke but Trunks could see the nervous sweat and clenched fists. This kid was preparing to either defend himself or attack and Trunks wanted to see what would happen if he said...

"I'm here to kill you," the boy jumped up and punched straight for Trunks' face.

"Anna Run!" His fist missed the man and he shouted in the air but it was as if the man just vanished from in front of him. Without pause Strax spun and punched hitting something ridiculously hard. Trunks was surprised the boy knew he was behind him again but that just showed the kid was smart, after doing it twice Strax figured out where he'd be. The girl wasn't running away but she wasn't attacking either. Trunks ignored the yelp of pain as Strax looked at his knuckles and looked down at the girl who was hesitating with her fists clenched. She looked over at the boy and water came to her eyes.

"What are you doing?" Trunks asked her.

Anna looked up with fear at the man monster in front of her. She saw Strax clench his bleeding fist and pull back and her eyes widened. Even without the obvious give away by the girl, Trunks knew the kid's fist was returning and spun around to catch it. The fist slammed into Trunks' opened palm and stopped. He kicked up and hit the man again in the stomach but his hits were doing nothing. Strax struggled as he was lifted off the ground.

Trunks lifted the boy into the air by his fist. Anna finally shouted, "Stop!" and ran forward at Trunks. She closed her eyes as she flailed her arms at him and hit nothing. When she opened them he was floating in the air with her brother in tow.

"What? Don't you still want to help him?" Trunks asked as the girl fell to the ground and started pushing herself back.

"Anna get out of here now!" Strax yelled from up high in the abandoned building. He used his free arm to try and pry Trunks' fingers individually off his caught fist but he couldn't budge them an inch.

"I-I w-won't leave," she got back up to her feet, "w-without you." Trunks smiled and lowered down to the ground before releasing the boy's fist. "What are you doing?" Anna asked the purple haired adult. He was grinning warmly at them and it made her feel better.

"Who are you?" Strax asked as he looked at his right hand's knuckles. Only two of them were bleeding but he regretted using as much strength as he could muster into that first punch.

"My name is Trunks Briefs," Anna giggled at the name and he continued. "How old are you?" The girl held up four fingers and Strax frowned before holding saying 'six' plainly. The boy was obviously still upset at Trunks even if he didn't believe the man was going to hurt them anymore.

"Umm, you're not really going to kill us right?" Anna questioned nervously.

Trunks gave her a serious look and her heart leapt but the man started smiling at her reaction, "No, no I'm not. And before you ask," he raised a hand in front of Strax's face as the boy opened his mouth. "The reason I'm here is because I was looking for you. Not you two specifically but people like you and I need to ask you both something." The man got on one knee and rested his hands on the children's shoulders, at this close they could see that the man wasn't a man at all but a teenager, he didn't look like he was out of high school. "Will you help me save the world?" The kids looked at him blankly and then turned to each other.

Acting as if the teen wasn't even there, Anna asked her brother, "Is this guy serious?" Strax shrugged his shoulders and looked back up at the teenager with huge muscles.

"I am," they looked back at him and he continued on, "We need people to defend the Earth from something unstoppable, an alien force that defeated all of Earth's strongest warriors already." Strax gulped and Anna looked afraid that the said bad guys were going to get them right now. "If you come with me it won't be for the glory of saving the planet, it will be to protect the lives of all those who live on it. You will work harder than you ever believed possible, and you will train to be more powerful than you ever imagined."

_How could I protect Anna, this seems like a good way_. Strax smiled at his sister and she opened her eyes wide. _This guy will make me so powerful I could defeat him in a second. And when those aliens come we could save people! _The little boy was looking excited but his sister was looking less thrilled.

_If the strongest people on earth couldn't beat them, what chance do we have? No, I can't let Strax think I'm scared, _Trunks watched in amusement as she was the first one to open her mouth and quickly say, "I'll do it," Strax turned to his little sister and she realized what she just said, "uh, I mean, I-I'll try."

"Me too," the boy said and Trunks smirked. The look on his face said they made a bad decision they were going to regret. "When do we start?"

"Now," Trunks whispered and then shouted, "DODGE!" The kids' eyes opened wide before they felt fists in their stomachs. The two of them hunched over and passed out instantly. He laughed to himself and dropping down from the ceiling was his long time friend.

Gohan saw the limp bodies and looked surprised, "Really?" Trunks nodded and handed him the girl, "You going to train them yourself?" The sixteen year old was now five foot seven and still growing but when Gohan looked at him he still saw the little boy so excited to run around and play whenever he was near. The day Goten died, Trunks' playful side took a harsh blow and he became a man far too early. Bulma talked to Gohan about trying to repair it, but the little boy they knew was gone.

Trunks was looking down at the boy in his arms thoughtfully. "Yeah, I will," the little boy's blonde hair got tussled by the growing teen and Gohan nodded. "Don't worry though, I'll still find time to keep up with our training." He and Gohan grabbed each other's right forearms and grinned.

Sc/ tl

18 was sitting home on her island all alone with her daughter and the perve when Gohan landed on the shore and waved to her. Master Roshi was inside and felt Gohan land but figured he was probably here for 18 so he stayed inside. The island was quiet since Krillin past away. Quiet except for when 18 was training Marron, the little blonde girl far surpassed Master Roshi in power and 18 was teaching her the skills of the most powerful fighters that ever lived on Earth that Dr. Gero had implanted in her mind.

Outside Kame House, Gohan strutted across the sand to the beach chair 18 was tanning in. She missed the times when he would shy away when she laid there in a bikini but he was a man now and didn't hesitate to walk straight up to the half-nude android. "Gohan," 18 started as she sat up.

"Great to see you Eighteen," they hugged and finally 18 got a blush out of him so she grinned. "Um," he cleared his throat as he pulled back, "How's Marron?"

18 pointed at the house and said seriously, "Inside unconscious," he noticed how she didn't say sleeping. "We were sparring earlier and she hit me, I was so surprised I forgot who I was fighting for an instant and lashed back at her."

"She's still a little girl," Gohan said out of concern. "You should go easy on her."

She glared at him making him take a step back, "You were younger when you started training. And what about those kids Trunks has taken under his wing?" Gohan realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with this and that he shouldn't be trying. Marron had an advantage those kids didn't of being born already stronger than most people. He was just worried about his goddaughter. 18 knew what he was thinking and rested a hand on his arm, "Don't worry, she'll be okay."

Gohan seemed at peace a little and remarked, "Actually, I came here to talk to Master Roshi. Is he inside?" The woman nodded solemnly and laid back down. Like Trunks, something changed in the old man the day her husband was killed. He changed, it wasn't like she'd admit to missing the old perverted man, he was just no longer the same person. The change seemed for the better, the only problem was he never smiled anymore.

Gohan walked inside and bowed to the master who was meditating on the floor on top of his turtle, Turtle. "Gohan," Roshi started without opening his eyes, "Why are you here?" No 'nice to see you' or 'how have you been,' just that.

"Actually Master, I was wondering if you could..."

"If I could train one of the children? Sorry son, I gave up being a teacher of martial artists." Gohan knew the man's pain, at least he tried to understand it. The old man had lost all of his students in one day. The closest people to him were all killed and he was powerless to stop it.

"That's actually not what I was going to ask," Roshi opened his eyes and stepped off the turtle, motioning for Gohan to continue. "I was wondering if you could help me, I can't seem to find anyone. I've searched all over but how did you find my father, and Krillin and Yamcha, how did you search them out?"

The over five hundred year old man sighed and spoke, "I didn't. They searched me out. One must be dedicated enough to train to be able to find you and ask for your guidance." Gohan was not looking for that answer since he'd been supposed to find pupils to start training for a couple years now. The chance that one would show up at his door was slim.

Sc

Meanwhile at Mt. Pao, Videl was watering the garden while her daughter played with some of the animals. The animals of the forest, the non-edible ones, were all friends of the Sons. Without notice, all the critters rushed off and Pan began to tear up, "Mommy, looky," Videl was proud of her daughter to be forming words at such a young age. The woman turned around and saw someone running out of the tree line towards her.

The boy panted and panted as he took each step towards the people in front of the house. He showed no signs of slowing down and Videl took this as an act of violence. She had been training intensely for years. Originally after she started going out with Gohan and realized all his friends were super strong, she relaxed on her training because those guys could do anything? Now with her being one of the strongest remaining fighters on the planet, she was training harder than ever, almost every day except for the later time of her pregnancy. Raising Pan was a full time job but she worked out while watching her daughter. Bulma had given them a Gravity Room that she rotated with Gohan in. He spent a much longer time in there at the top gravity the machine could get to, 1500x Earth's Gravity.

Even with the new models, Bulma still couldn't find a way that Gohan could test his limits. She worked as hard as the others, though not to make herself stronger but to help the others improve. At the moment she was locked inside the lab with a team of the best scientists in the world just to get the machines to be able to handle ten times higher than what they could of Earth's gravity.

Videl flew up into the air and shot over to meet the boy halfway. He didn't stop running and she floated above him as he sprinted right up to her. With insane speed she shot down, grabbed the boy and flew back up into the air. He felt someone grab him and then watched his feet lift off the ground because that's where he was looking and didn't even notice the woman before. The boy shouted and squirmed in her arms as she whispered menacingly into his ear, "Why are you here?"

"I'm sorry, please don't hurt me," the kid sounded on the verge of pissing himself and Videl decided he was not a threat. She lowered back down to the ground and Pan started clapping for her mommy.

"I'll ask again, why are you here?" she released his collar and he felt relieved. The boy was dressed in rags, but the rags looked like they were once something nice, like really nice.

"I-I came to train. When I saw the announcement being rerun I-I, I wanted to help." Videl was surprised, not one person had come to their house because of the announcement and it's been well over a year. She didn't even know it was still being run on television but she guessed that the channel providers wanted to help in some way if they weren't going to train themselves. In fact, every station ran the announcement at least once a day.

"What's your name kid?" Videl asked intensely.

He was flustered, this was _the_ Videl Satan in front of him. He did not want to piss her off, "M-m-my name's D-d-d-d-Dreeve," the kid's stutter was kind of cute and Videl softened up her stare.

"And how old are you Dreeve?" The tone of her voice was a lot lighter which made him feel a little better but he was still very nervous.

"I'm s-six," he thought maybe he was too young and quickly corrected himself, "and a half." Videl chuckled and patted him on the head.

"Alright," she said and started walking away.

"Alright? Wait, what do you mean, will you train me?" Videl laughed out loud sending shivers down Dreeve's spine.

"Oh no, not me," he felt relieved. Videl Satan was supposedly as strong as her father. "You'll be training with my husband."

"You're married!?" Dreeve shouted before covering his mouth shut. That meant the guy on that message that said he lived here was... he was scary too.

"Yep, and he's on his way home from a friend's house. He'll be here in a few minutes, better get ready." Dreeve gulped as the woman walked back over to her daughter and started playing with her. Videl started doing something that made Dreeve drop his jaw. She picked up her daughter and threw her up in the sky, as the little girl squealed in joy, Videl would fly up and catch her. After a few more times his nerves began to settle down but on the last one, Videl threw Pan so high up he couldn't see the little girl anymore and what was worse, she just went back to her gardening. As he was about to say something he looked back up and saw someone floating down from the clouds holding a happy little girl in his arms.

"Hello there," Gohan landed and extended his hand for the boy to shake. The excited kid stuck out his arm and shook Gohan's hand worriedly. "Who might you be?"

"He's come to train with you," Videl called over and Gohan realized just how relevant his recent conversation with the Turtle Hermit actually was. The little boy didn't look very special, he was tall for his age, had black hair that flowed down to below his shoulders, and was wearing rags.

"First things first, let's get you out of those." He pointed at the kid's outfit and the boy took a good look at himself for the first time in a while. His royal garments were tattered and unrecognizable, which he was glad for because he didn't want them knowing who he was. "I think I probably have some clothes that are a perfect size for you." Videl froze and watched her husband walk away with a smile on his face. She could see through him though and knew that he was going to need her by his side. She walked over and the two of them walked past his house. Dreeve followed carefully behind as they went to Gohan's old house. Inside, the man grabbed a gi of his younger brother and walked back downstairs where he felt his wife put a hand on his shoulder.

Walking back outside he came face to face with the boy and told him to put on the gi. His face flushed with red as he pointed down, "Here? Out in the open? Shouldn't I go inside?"

"There's nobody around except us for miles, if you feel you need to hide something you can go inside," Gohan teased and the younger boy got more red. Not wanting to disappoint Dreeve got out of his rags and into his gi on the front lawn while he kept his underwear on. As the boy popped his head through the hole on the top, Gohan's heart lurched and his face must've reflected it because Dreeve thought he did something wrong and panicked. "Don't worry," the smile returned to Gohan's face, you just remind me of someone."

This made Dreeve even more nervous as he hoped Gohan hadn't already recognized him. Thankfully Gohan didn't continue on the subject and instead asked a simple question, "Have you ever fought before?" The boy hesitated and then shook his head, "Well then, there's a first time for everything." Gohan got in his stance and grinned.

Eight hours later the sun was setting and Dreeve lay on his back on the grass in front of his new master panting and exhausted. He was covered in bruises and Gohan did not play around, one misstep and he was put flat on his ass. "Do you still want to be here?"

"Definitely," Dreeve pulled himself onto a knee, then got back to his feet and into the stance Gohan showed him hours earlier.

"Good, you passed the test." Dreeve was confused but watch as Gohan pointed over at the house he went into before to get him some clothes. "You'll live there, but all food you need you'll have to find, clean, and cook yourself."

"Aren't you going to teach me?" Dreeve asked with a startled look on his face.

"When I was just over four years old, I was dropped alone in the wild for six months by my master. Thank me that I'm at least letting you sleep in a house," Dreeve shut up and thanked his master with a deep bow. The tone of voice of that last sentence made it seem like Gohan might reconsider and make him sleep outside. As the man walked away he thought to himself with a smirk, _then again I am half alien with superior genes. But he doesn't need to know that._

The whole day of training made Dreeve hungry but he was too sore to move. He managed to drag himself to his new home and find a room with a bed and a closet filled with the orange outfits that he was wearing. During the day he'd learned so much but it was so embarrassing to just keep attacking the man who easily bats him away without trying. He had to get past that attitude if he wanted to survive though and he knew it. This wasn't a guarded castle with servants to make him food whenever he asked for it. There might be a roof over his head but he was in the wild.

**A/n Uploaded this one because it was finished and I wanted to keep on going, so yeah it's the second chapter today. Ask questions in the reviews and tell me what you think. Enjoy.**


	3. Chapter 3

I don't own DBZ.

"Mr. Satan, it has been over two years since you told us there were aliens coming to kill us all. Where are they? Why haven't they shown up yet?" The swarm of reporters grew bigger by the day as people began questioning whether the whole thing was a sham. He tried to stall them and avoid the questions but he really didn't know anything about it.

Finally one day someone called him out as a liar and he knew his reputation was at stake. Requesting aid from his daughter's husband wasn't the most enjoyable thing but he knew he needed to do it. Gohan was hesitant but the man pleaded and told Gohan to do whatever he needed to do to get people to believe the threat was still real.

Bulma set up another time slot for Gohan to speak but this time they got it for a lot longer than an average commercial. The man in his mid twenties stepped in front of the camera and cleared his throat feeling very nervous. His debut on television was when he was five and again when he was eleven but he didn't worry about the tv then. Now with no immediate threat bearing down on him, he pulled at the collar of his purple gi.

When the red light turned on he started in a low, calm voice, "My name is Son Gohan. Many of you recognize me from the last time I came on to tell you about the alien threat that many of you are now skeptical of. Then again, many of you might recognize me from elsewhere, like when aliens invaded twenty years ago. If you have seen the footage you will see a little boy in the midst of the fight and that was me." He took a long pause and then his hair shot golden, "Still more of you probably recognize me from the Cell Games, I was the delivery boy." Gohan saw the cameraman almost drop the camera but retained his hold on it despite his shock. "I need you to all believe me when I tell you the alien threat is real and nobody can stop it. Last time all I told you was that they were coming. Now I'll tell you why it's taking them so long. While some stayed behind, I, along with my twelve year old brother and three others, went into space to stop the aliens before they got to Earth. And to avenge my father who was the first to try and stop them. When we found their fleet of spaceships we engaged them in battle. Every one of my friends died, my little brother was killed, but before they went, they left us with a gift. One of my friends destroyed the entire fleet before dying which is why they are taking so long to get here. They are performing repairs on their ships and rebuilding. When they get here we will not be able to stop them, there is nothing I can do against a force of this magnitude, not alone anyway." He thought about the purple alien he had to go all out against during the battle they called K'luk'fruk and how he was outclassed. The enemy was more powerful and it was only Gohan's superior technique that allowed him to pull through as the victor. "This is why I came to you, this is why I'm here now. The world is in trouble, and each one of you has the potential to do something about it. I don't know when they will get here, but they will arrive. And when they do, I want us to be more prepared than last time. We'll be able to stop them from taking over our planet. Who's with me?" Gohan wrapped up his speech and walked away with the camera still rolling.

The following week was madness as the original panic set back in. People became frantic to find ways to stop the aliens but this time there were people who wanted to stop it. Martial arts dojos were booming as people wanted to be able to at least defend themselves when the time came. Still people kept from searching out the fighters and joining them in their quest to save the planet.

At the Son house, Pan had turned two and Dreeve had been with them for six months. His determination was incredible and his improvement shocked Gohan. The boy looked almost the same as he did when he arrived at the son house except now his hair was almost to his waist. He and Gohan had a laugh about what he'd look like if he was a Super Saiyan. The two of them had grown close during their training together. On one afternoon, Dreeve was sparring with Videl while the woman couldn't use her right arm. Videl was spending a lot more time with her daughter than her training and wondered when the two would become one thing. She and Gohan had talked about how they were going to train Pan and once she was three, the training would begin. During this session Dreeve was proving to have improved dramatically. He was punching and kicking almost too fast for Videl to block with her left hand or dodge them all. Gohan watched from the sidelines with Pan on his shoulder.

The woman moved out of the way and Dreeve's momentum carried him an extra few feet. He was getting sloppy but it was because he was annoyed that Videl was seemingly so easily dodging his attacks. He spun to hit her again but she'd closed the distance and held a fist an inch from his nose. It was all over, Dreeve growled and turned around starting to march away. "What's wrong?" Gohan asked his pupil who was obviously troubled.

"What's wrong is I've been here for half a year already and I haven't progressed at all. Videl dodges every one of my attacks without breaking a sweat," he angrily sat down on the grass.

"That's not true Dreeve," Videl started, "You've improved greatly. And you're getting better faster than I am because you spend so much more time training. I wouldn't be surprised if I had to start using both my hands..."

"That's just it!" He shouted in exasperation, "There is no real improvement. I'm still, I'm still, still weak."

Gohan opened his mouth to argue when he felt some small ki's coming closer. The family looked up in the sky and coming from the distance were three jetcopters. "No, they found me," Dreeve muttered taking a step back. _Maybe it's for the best anyway, I'm not getting any stronger here._

"Are you in some sort of trouble?" Videl asked concerned for the boy she now considered like her own son.

"I may have stretched the truth when I told you I was an orphan." The copters landed and a group of armed soldiers ran out forming a defensive position around the center copter.

"Dreevy baby, where are you?" An irritatingly shrill voice sounded out and a pudgy woman squeezed out of the jetcopter. Following her was a tall man of almost seven feet and both of them had golden crowns on their heads.

"Hi mom," Gohan looked at the woman and saw no resemblance between her and her son. Suddenly all the signs he'd been getting from the kid over the last couple months were starting to make sense. When they were really getting along, Dreeve had accidentally answered Videl with, 'yes mom' and immediately apologized. She said it was okay and she wouldn't mind if he called her that but the boy looked distant the rest of the day.

"Oh honey," the woman ran over and began smothering her son in a huge hug. Looking up furiously at the Sons the woman shouted, "Who are you people and why have you kidnapped my son? If you wanted a ransom we would've been happy to pay it. Give me one good reason I shouldn't order the royal forces to take you down right now."

"Mom stop," the lady looked down at her son who released himself from her death grip somehow. "They didn't kidnap me, I ran away."

"WHAT!?" She screamed.

Gohan walked over and put a hand on Dreeve's shoulder, "I'm very sorry miss. Had I known he ran away we would have notified you right away." Dreeve knew he was getting a stern look from his master.

"It's quite alright," the man in the crown stepped forward and continued, "For keeping our son safe, all of Restaria thanks you and you will be rewarded greatly."

"What does the kingdom of Restaria have to do with Dreeve?" Videl asked stepping up to her husband with their daughter in her arms.

"It's actually Prince Dreeve, he's our son and I am King Hove, that is my wife Queen Zia." The queen didn't turn away from her son who was not liking all the attention. To him it was all over now, he loved how for the first time in his life he wasn't the center of attention all the time. At the Son household he was just another member of the family.

"Come on Dreeve, it's time for us to go home," his mom tugged on his sleeve and he looked pleadingly back at Gohan.

The Son father cleared his throat and stated, "You introduced yourselves but let me now," they turned to him and Gohan continued, "I am Son Gohan. I warned the world of the alien invasion..." The recognition set in instantly and both parents stepped back. "Out of everyone in the entire world, your son was the only one to come and offer his help to save us."

"I know what you're trying to say but he is not only our son, but a Prince with responsibilities to his kingdom." The King stated, "We thank you but do not overstep your bounds." They got the message and stepped back.

Dreeve was herded onto one of the copters and his parents came back in behind him. He looked out and sadly waved to his family for the last half year. Pan was reaching out with her little hands trying to keep him there and Videl was standing straight up though her eyes were red. His master looked at him and they made direct eye contact, "Come back anytime." Gohan said out loud and over the sounds of the engines Dreeve swore he heard it. The boy didn't know if he would, they were a loving family, but he felt like he hadn't gotten stronger at all since they started training him. There were the skills he learned but not the strength he desperately wanted. How could he stop aliens by sensing them or flying to them and telling them how to catch and cook fish.

When Dreeve got back home the next school year had already commenced and his class of only high born children were all talking about money and their parents' yachts. After sitting through a lecture that was nothing compared to when Gohan would teach him during their resting periods. A major part of training he'd been told was the resting and eating well part. He was almost always accompanied when he wasn't in his room now so he could only practice his technique in his room at night and right after he woke up.

Because he stayed up too late the night before forming ki balls and dissipating them before they got too big, Dreeve was feeling exhausted in class. During the teacher's speech, Dreeve zoned out and imagined Gohan and Videl sparring but he wasn't there. After a minute. The man called his name out and everyone else snickered at it. Dreeve got embarrassed at first and then angry so he slammed his fist down on the desk. Every single person in the class including himself jumped in fright as the desk crashed under his fist to the floor.

"Uhh, it must've been an old desk." Dreeve stated, shifting the blame was easy for a Prince because no one ever argued with you. Of course something was still off and as class continued with Dreeve standing up he realized what it was. He thought he hadn't been getting any stronger because every time he went up against Gohan or Videl, they didn't even try and they slayed him. It gave him an idea and later that day, Dreeve confronted his security detail and told the six men walking around with him, "I'm going to fight you. Try to fight me back or you'll get hurt anyway."

The men stared at the little boy as if he was insane but he did need to be restrained so one man reached down to grab him, "Come on little guy, let's get back to the castle." Dreeve moved faster than the man knew was possible and grabbed his hand before flipping him over his head and into the wall. The other five needed no more incentive and ran forward to stop their ward. He easily ran around and through their legs before taking them out one by one by attacking the spot on their necks.

Dreeve thought about how much strength he'd actually gained during his training. That night at dinner the boy stood up and said, "I'm going back to the Son's." He'd only been gone for close to a week but he was missing his other family much more than he ever missed his real one.

"That's absurd, you can't leave. I won't let you," his mom was flustered and screaming. Her son sounded dead set and if she couldn't talk him out of it she'd have the guards restrain him.

"Why?" Dreeve's father asked him, both ignoring the Queen.

"Because what importance is any of this if the world is going to be destroyed anyway. If I could help stop it from happening, if I could save everyone..."

"This is ridiculous! Stop this nonsense immediately or I'll have the guards take you to your room and keep you there!" Queen Zia yelled.

King Hove looked at his son and saw not only how much he matured in the time he was gone, but how there was now a purpose driving him. "You can go, but you will still fulfill your duties as a prince and when I die, you will take over my kingdom."

Now Queen Zia was screaming at her husband but both of the males were ignoring her. The boy had a purpose and if she couldn't accept that, then she wouldn't have to. "Thank you dad," Dreeve bowed to his father and his mother called the guards into the room. They'd heard the screaming and were preparing themselves but now twenty of them charged into the room in full metal armor. Restaria was a traditional land and didn't involve itself too much with the rest of the world which included staying away from guns so the guards had spears and swords. The kid looked around him and saw guards and his father wasn't calling them off, if he wanted to go, it would have to be fighting.

Dreeve didn't wait for his mom to give the order for them to get him and sprinted forward, kicking the first guard in the chestplate, knocking him back into three others. The other men either ran to attack the child or protect the King and Queen. Dreeve found his opponent's numbers split in half and flew up into the air before ramming right through them out the door. His hair was now in a crew cut because his mother didn't like it long when he got back and the only thing he thought as he flew away from his castle was, _I wonder what Gohan will think of my new haircut._

When the boy got back to the 439 mountain region, he saw the Son family waiting on the front lawn. They'd felt him approaching and came outside reluctantly. This was something none of them wanted to do but was necessary. Dreeve landed and smiled as he started running over to them but they were still frowning. It was great to see him after a whole week but the Sons knew what they had to do. "Dreeve, go home," Gohan stated.

"What?" the boy asked hurt.

"Your parents won't let you stay," Videl continued but her voice cracked mid-sentence.

"Wait, I got permission," the family looked at him skeptically. "Well, from my father, my mom was pretty angry about it but I need to do this. That life isn't meant for me anymore, I want to help save the world."

Gohan looked at the seven year old with pride before saying with a smile, "What happened to your hair?" They caught up and had a laugh about Dreeve's week away and he apologized for getting angry, that he didn't realize he really was getting stronger. Finally Gohan looked at him and grinned evilly, "Hey Dreeve," the boy looked up and gulped, "You missed a week of training. Do you know what that means?" He shook his head and Gohan laughed, "No house for another week, you can sleep in the forest." The boy groaned and it was already night time so he headed out a little after and slept on a soft patch of dirt in the woods.

At midnight, Dreeve was woken up by the sound of a growl and looked up. Towering above him was a tyrannosaurus rex, looking hungry with drool coming out of its mouth. Dreeve started up and ran away screaming as the dinosaur chased him. After a minute he turned back and didn't see the monster anymore, he'd left it in the dust he ran so fast. _I need to find somewhere better to sleep,_ he saw a cave and walked into the darkness. It didn't seem so bad and he was about to lie down when he heard a growl. It was pitch black but he'd been taught to fight with other senses and heard the footsteps of something big circling him. It jumped up in a pounce and Dreeve dropped to the floor and kicked up his left foot, sending the five hundred pound grizzy slamming into the ceiling. The bear fell down and Dreeve's stomach growled, _guess I found my midnight snack._

sc

Trunks had been training his pupils for almost a year and they were improving amazingly although Strax was getting better much faster than Anna was. The little girl was now five and the boy was still six, his birthday was a week before he met Trunks. Trunks' way of teaching was much different from Gohan's and similar to his father's. While Goku's son taught Dreeve how to survive in the wild, and things he would've learned in school but never would need to know now, Trunks only spent time with the kids to train them. Rest wasn't in the teen's vocabulary and as soon as he finished training with the kids he'd go into a GR and train at one hundred percent all the time. He couldn't let himself let up no matter how many times his mom begged him to stop breaking the machines.

His training was intense but Strax never once complained. After Trunks told them about what happened to his friends, Anna stopped arguing about how impossible each task he gave them was. They were in Capsule Corp.'s backyard sparring right now, Anna was trying to last with her brother for over a minute but his power kept getting stronger and each goal she set for herself seemed to get harder and harder the more he progressed.

The purple haired man was shouting out pointers each time an error in stance or a wrong fist was thrown at a time when it should've been a kick or the other hand. Bulma's mom walked outside and Trunks said hi to his grandma. She had drinks for them and rested them down on the little table next to some chairs outside. Her blonde hair was still natural and not graying and she didn't look a year older than she did twenty years ago. Bulma was getting jealous of her mother as she started to show signs of aging but the blunette hid it pretty good as well.

Kiki looked around and then to Trunks, "Where are Anna and Strax?" The boy pointed onto the lawn and although he could see them perfectly, they were moving so fast Kiki's eyes couldn't keep up and she finally saw them as Strax's fist collided with his sister's face knocking her to the grass.

"Forty-two seconds, that's a new best Strax," Trunks called over and the boy smiled as he reached down to help his sister up. She humphed and pulled herself to her feet on her own. It was frustrating that each time she improved, he improved double. Anna frowned and pushed past her brother over to the table where she downed the glass of water.

"Get over it," Trunks whispered to her as he walked over. Strax was sitting not too far from them but was talking happily to the blonde woman. Anna looked at her master with confusion, "Stop pouting because it isn't going to change anything, he's still going to be better than you. Do you know why?"

"Because he's older than me, he's a boy, and you like him more," Anna stated angrily. Trunks looked surprised but she'd been wanting to get that off her chest for a while now. Trunks always seemed to favor Strax during exercises and would constantly point out things she was doing wrong instead of commenting on him.

"That's not true," Anna looked at him and their voices were still low as to not interrupt Trunks and Kiki's conversation. "I was one of the strongest people in the world by the time I was six, I have a friend who _is_ one of the strongest on the planet and she's a girl, and I do not favor either one of you. If you feel I've been going harder on you it's because you don't have the motivation your brother has." She looked over at Strax, who unlike her, was smiling and even showing off a bruise on his cheek to the grandmother. "You can't beat him because when he trains he does it because he knows he's going to save people by doing it and it gives him happiness. All you think about is not being too much weaker than him, but that's not good enough. You can't strive towards lasting a certain amount of time fighting him, or lifting almost as much as he does." Anna stopped frowning and thought about her reasons for the nonstop training and he was right. From the first day, all she thought about was Strax not thinking she was weak, her mindset was like that for the whole time they spent together and it was holding her back.

She whispered, "But how can I change that, how can I just find a new purpose?" Trunks told her to wait and when the training for the day was finished, Strax went to sleep and Trunks went and grabbed Anna from their guest room, where the kids were staying, without waking her brother. After about a week, Trunks had already taught the kids how to fly because it opened up so many possibilities for fighting. The two of them stepped out of Capsule Corp. without a sound and shot up into the sky wordlessly.

Within twenty minutes, the two of them reached a tall hill overlooking a valley. The full moon was out and there were a lot of stars in the sky so it was pretty lit up. Anna followed Trunks as he landed and started walking to the top of the hill. She could make out a couple shapes up top but it was only when she got a few feet away that she realized where they were. Trunks kneeled down and Anna watched as he put his hand on the closest tombstone and wiped away some dust. He lifted his hand and a ball of ki formed, casting a light over the grave. "Who is that?" she asked pointing to the name on the rock. The tombstone wasn't conventional and they all looked like someone had just tore rocks out of the ground and carved into them.

"That man, Vegeta," Anna recognized it as his father from some of her talks with Bulma but she didn't say anything about it, "is why we're all here right now. He destroyed the alien fleet before they could come to Earth and destroy us all. And this," he moved two tombstones over and held up his hand so the girl could read the letters. She'd never seen the word before and didn't know how to pronounce it since she wasn't a very good reader. "This is my best friend, his name was Goten." Trunks took a deep breath as he patted the top of the grave marker. "Do you know what're under these rocks?"

"Umm, bodies?" Anna said confused at the question.

"That's what you'd think. But no, there were no bodies when they were through with my friends. These aliens are ruthless, I watched as they killed my best friend who was powerless and beaten. He had no strength left but they didn't care, they don't take prisoners." He turned and met the girl's eyes with his own, "You may not believe me when I tell you, but you are one of the strongest people in the world. But that's not enough, we have to be more than the strongest in _this_ world, we need to be the best in every world. If we aren't, what happened to them will happen to everyone else we know, everyone left on Earth will be annihilated and you have to help me stop it. Now when we continue training I don't want you to think about how you need to get strong to keep up with Strax because he is pulling ahead. You have to go at your own pace and become stronger so that you can stop these monsters from destroying the world. I believe in you Anna, do you believe in yourself?"

She looked back at the graves and then to her master with a smile, "Yes I do." He put his hand through her hair and picked her up.

"Now let's get back to the house, you're still tired from today so I'll carry you." She wanted to argue but his back felt so comfortable all of a sudden. Anna passed out and then her eyes jolted open and it was still dark out. Dark except for the huge portion of sky lit up with a giant yellow sphere. The explosion calmed down but she kept seeing flashes in the sky, she tried to focus on them but they were moving too fast for her. The feeling she was getting was that both powers were incredibly high and one belonged to her master. When they'd been taught to search out ki's, they found out that each person feels a certain way. Like all food tastes unique, each person has a certain feeling that you can put with them no matter how high or low their energy is.

All of a sudden a person shot down from the sky and crashed into the ground in front of her causing the ground to shake and debris to fly everywhere, some hitting her and a rock hit her in the arm at crazy fast speeds making her shout in pain. Looking up she saw a man with gold hair looking down at her and then his hair turned black and he lowered down to the ground. "Are you okay? I didn't realize you woke up, though now that I think about it," the spiky-haired man put a hand behind his head and smiled, "I don't see how anyone could've slept through that ruckus."

"Oh Anna, you're awake," Trunks limped out of the crater and walked over to her with his purple hair all messed up. It wasn't blonde anymore and fell back like it usually did behind his head and down the top half of his back. The teenager had blood running down his face and his leg looked like it was causing him an immense amount of pain. Gohan looked at him and frowned, "yeah I know, you're sorry. Don't worry about it, I'll take one." Trunks reached into his pants and pulled out a little green bean. His clothes were made of almost indestructible material that could stretch like Saiyan armor. The suit could defend against bullets and wouldn't get burned or destroyed in medium sized ki blasts but Trunks and his partner weren't playing around.

"Bulma's going to throw a fit when she sees what you did to her clothes she worked so hard to 'perfect.'" Gohan laughed as Trunks kicked his leg out a couple times to make sure he was fine.

"What do you mean 'what _I_ did to her clothes'? She's going to know it was you," Anna watched the grown man gulp nervously. She didn't understand it, these people were so powerful she couldn't even comprehend it but they were afraid of Bulma. Bulma! Trunks turned to his pupil and patted her on the head, "I see you've met, introduce yourself."

Anna smiled at the man with spiky hair and greeted, "Hello, I'm Anna."

"I'm Gohan, nice to meet you," the man held out his hand and Anna reached out to shake it but Gohan pulled her in and started tickling her. Trunks forgot sometimes that she was just a five year old girl and reminded himself to at least let her have a little more fun. He picked up the girl and propped her up on Trunks' shoulder, "Guess you guys should probably get back. Same time tomorrow?" Trunks nodded and took off.

"Wait, do you always do this after we go to sleep?" Anna asked and Trunks nodded.

"His house wasn't far from where we were so I didn't want to go home just to have to come back out here. Have to get my own training in too and during the day I'm resting half the time you guys are doing work." Anna thought back and it hit her that besides a few exercises, Trunks usually told them to go do something and they'd do it without him watching. If he was out all night training, it made sense he'd need the sleep.

"Well you won't have to worry about doing that much longer," Trunks looked up at her as he flew. "Because soon me and Strax will be able to fight with you so you can just train with us," the man smiled and flew faster to give the girl a thrill. She shrieked in delight and soon they were back at Capsule Corp. where Trunks sent the girl to bed.

He didn't like having to take a sense bean because it not only made him feel weak, but he didn't feel hungry for a while and he loved his food. Korin and Yajirobe were working hard, they always joked about how they weren't running a bean farm up there, but now they actually spent a lot of time growing the beans and storing them in baskets because there was no telling when the invaders would come and how many of the beans they would need when they did. Each fighter had his own supply that was given to them and could go up to the tower to resupply at any time. 18 never used them and only gave her daughter one in an extreme circumstance where the girl was bleeding without stop and she caved in to Roshi's pleas. Trunks and Gohan used them all the time because it allowed them to keep on training without pausing for food and they didn't have to recuperate between training sessions.

Gohan was still training after his spar with Trunks and was in the GR at 1,400X Earth's gravity as a Super Saiyan 2. The amount of pressure constantly being put on him was getting to be too much and he dropped out of his Super state into the one he acquired from Old Kai. His aura turned white and the pressure became far less noticeable as he started running around the room. Gohan started throwing punches and kicks and raised the gravity to the highest it could go and started doing push ups in a hand stand. Now with all the gravity pushing down on him and his whole body above him, the boy was feeling an intense amount of stress. He wouldn't let up and the pain he felt from doing so many felt great, he pulled a hand back and started doing the push ups one handed once he reached a hundred. Sweat was dripping down him and each push up was harder than the previous one. He switched hands but it didn't help, the pressure was still too much but he had to keep going. "Raaaaaa, AAAAA, AAAAAAA!" he pushed harder but he couldn't exert any more power, he was at his fullest. Finally it caught up with him and the gravity pushed him down but he was able to catch himself from slamming into the ground fast enough to slam through the floor and have to ask Bulma for yet another machine. His legs managed to curl up so he was on his knees and after a moment he got back up on his feet and went over to the machine, turning it back off.

After stepping out onto the grass in his front lawn, Gohan sighed and looked up at the sky. There was something he needed to ask his father but Gohan knew he couldn't travel to Otherworld. He had one option, "Dad?" he asked straight up into the clouds. "Dad if you can hear me I really need your help. I've tried so hard but I can't do anything to get stronger. There is a slight increase in power from before but I need your help, I need to be able to transform to a Super Saiyan 3. I know you always said we couldn't handle it when we weren't in Otherworld or if you just happened to be dead in the mortal world like you were with Buu, but you know we all felt you turn into one before you died. That power could save the world, the world you love and I need to know, how can I achieve this power?" He became silent and looked up at the passing clouds in the night sky. Gohan stood there in silence for minutes that turned into an hour but still no sign anyone had heard him.

"Gohan," a voice sounded in his mind and the boy closed his eyes.

"Dad?" Gohan asked nervously through his mind.

"Yes, I'm here, it's great to hear from you again. It's been so long," Goku sounded happy as always and Gohan shook his head. "About your question... I'm sorry Gohan."

"What? Do you think I won't be able to do it?" the living man asked.

"No it's not that," Goku responded quickly to put all doubt out of his son's mind. "If anyone could do it, it would be you. I'm sorry because I can't tell you how to achieve this next level. You need to figure it out on your own, more so than with the other transformations. To become a Super Saiyan 3 you must, damn it's hard to explain without giving it away and I really wish I could just tell you but I can't. This isn't my place to tell."

"Father I understand," Gohan assured, hearing the sad tone of his dead dad. "Either way it was still great to hear from you again."

"I would tell you that I'll teach you how to become a Super Saiyan Three once you get to Otherworld, but I have a feeling you'll be one long, lonnggg before then. Until then, I love you son."

"I love you too dad." Gohan felt his father's presence leave and smiled. He was satisfied with the response even if it wasn't what he was hoping for. Maybe it was the sound of his father's voice, or the reassuring words he received from him, but Gohan felt a newfound confidence that he would find a way to ascend to that next level and it would be soon.

sc/tl

The hooded figure sat atop his crashed ship alone when he heard the hum. It was soft at first, then it became louder and he could make out multiple ships coming towards him. The skies weren't deceiving him, there was a fleet coming down towards the planet and the ships were big and shaped like rectangular prisms. The commander of the forces on the original fleet looked up at the cargo ships being led by one singular T-45 ship, the prized design of the old Arcosian family. The circular ship lowered from the sky but did not land in the junkyard desert that was the remains of his fleet.

One of the orbs on the ship opened up and a figure left it. He looked humanoid, even like a Saiyan or Earthling except that with the pale skin came patches of gray. Also he had no hair and the cloak he wore was black like the others. Appearing on top of the mothership with the commander were the Admiral of the crashed moon-size ship, and head admiral of all ships, Trussir, and the Commander's second in command Syria. One person was missing from the four commanding officers since his good friend K'luk'fruk was killed during the battle.

The first thing the hooded figure said when he landed was, "You fucked up big time."

"We've been here for years and the first thing you say..."

"You failed your mission," the bald man snapped at Syria. The red woman seethed for a second but the man turned back to the general, "The King was very displeased to hear about your defeat and decided to let you rot here for as long as he felt fit. These ships are filled with not only supplies but the materials your men should be able to repair your ships with. As for the Dreadnaught," they looked down at the ship beneath them, "It will take a long time for you to get it back up and working but the King won't take chances this time around. Every tool we have at our disposal will be used to subject Earth under His reign."

"Of course," the Commander said still with his hood up. "What about my necessity for more men? There were only five of them and two thirds of my men were decimated."

"And women," Syria added in annoyance that her commander kept referring to them all as men. Sure there were a lot less females but that didn't mean shit.

The bald man looked amused that Syria would speak out twice like this in a standard meeting like this. Usually she got bored and thought about different stuff while they had these chats. It was because she was stuck on a desert planet for over three years without any help and it turned out she wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.

"The King does not want any more mistakes and will be sending in two of the three other fleets from across the stars to aid you. In command of all three won't be their individual Commanders but the King's son Prince Kass. Also there will be replacements for your own men out of the training planet. Lastly," he paused and grinned nastily at the commander, "I will be replacing K'luk'fruk as your Second Admiral. Now I'd like to get straight to work Commander Rowan so I'll go start unpacking the ships."

They all groaned as soon as the man flew away towards the landed cargo ships. Trussir frowned and looked at a man he actually respected and asked, "He may be the Second Admiral but he's still my superior isn't he?" Rowan nodded, the King's lackeys were all incredibly powerful and only answered to the one man. No matter what position they were given, they were in charge and you'd be best to remember that if you wanted your head to stay on your shoulders.

"We need to find out what happened to those ships that were sent to Earth." No report was ever sent back and without any more ships and completely destroyed communications, there was no way to find out what occurred. They all looked up at the T-45 in the sky above them.

"You sure taking his ship is the best idea?" Trussir asked sarcastically. It was equipped with hyperspace travel and its communications array worked so it would be able to communicate with them.

"Sir," Rowan looked at his number two because she never addressed him formally which could only mean one thing. "Please allow me to lead this mission."

"No."

"But Rowan," she lost her fake composrue and whined, "the last two ships were most likely destroyed. You can trust that I won't be taken down as easily as they were." She was right, if there was a single person he believed could do it in the entire fleet it was her. He hand-picked her himself from the training planet and he knew just how powerful she was. The problem was that that was exactly why he needed her here. She had to be there with the main invasion force. Another surveillance mission would be risky no matter who was going and he didn't want to lose her.

She saw the deep-thinking look on his face but he was dead set on keeping her here. "We'll send Zeke, he'll take fifteen men, not even a full crew. Just enough to get in, figure out their defenses and get out." Syria growled but if it wasn't her, Zeke was the next best to send on the trip. He wasn't as powerful as her but he was an amazing assassin and stealth and obtaining information was his best quality. "You can tell him."

Syria spun around to follow her orders but appearing out of the ship was the dark mass that solidified in front of her. "No need," the darkness said and the woman felt creeped out just looking at it. Zeke on all accounts seemed like a chill guy, but his voice, appearance, and everything else besides his personality creeped everyone out. "I might've been listening in, haha."

Syria smirked and faced her commander. "You're right, he'll be perfect." She turned back around and almost jumped in fright, he melded into the floor and she watched the dark spot move along the floor and around the camp as Zeke went and notified the certain men he wanted on his crew.

The men all flew up to the ship that was hovering in the air and Prill flew up to the top of the Dreadnaught where Rowan stood. Trussir excused himself as Prill started, "What do you think you're doing? What are those men doing up at my ship?" A shout was heard and three men fell out of the sky. Rowan figured Zeke didn't want Prill's crew that were still on the ship to come with him. The T-45 lifted up higher and shot away as Prill shouted after it.

"That ship is headed for Earth," Rowan explained to the royal prick.

"Why?" Prill asked angrily, "Before the King slaughtered your men they told him that you already sent recon ships to the planet. Was R'yuk'y successful?" Although Prill breezed right past it, Rowan was still hurt by the fact his men were slaughtered. It was always a possibility when notifying the King of a failure but he'd hoped the man would be merciful.

"They haven't been heard from since. Those men will search for R'yuk'y and an explanation for his disappearance whether it be because of death or their ships being destroyed." Prill looked shocked, Rowan figured the man had no idea how high the caliber of the situation he was stepping into really was.

"Could he really have been stopped?" Prill asked.

"K'luk'fruk was beaten, and he was thrice as strong as the other Ultarian." Prill looked up but remembered his ship was gone. He could always travel back in a cargo ship but they'd have to unload everything and it was easier to keep it all in there as the repairs were made. He'd just have to wait until the ship got back, if it got back.

Sc

The same day the ship was sent out from the desert planet it entered the galaxy of the target. Zeke laid the plan out for them and all the men grabbed out scouters from the old regime base that was on the planet. He knew he was right when he told Rowan not to destroy all the cool stuff along with all those pathetic aliens. Only a few of the former subordinates of Frieza were worth recruiting and their initiation was killing all the men who weren't worthy.

They reached a point when they could see the Earth in their sights and everyone got into individual pods except for the pilot. This mission was to be one hundred percent safe so the ship wouldn't even enter the atmosphere. Each of the fifteen invaders would have their own ship and if they weren't back by a certain time, they'd be left behind. The scouters were turned on and they all went to the same channel so they could hear each other. This way even if someone saw something and was killed before they got back to the ship, they could report it to everyone else first. Even the pilot had one so if the entire rest of the crew was killed, he could return to the fleet and report what happened to them. It was foolproof and Zeke was proud of his plan.

They all checked in and scattered around the planet. All at once they flew into the atmosphere and down to the surface.

Sc

Gohan felt the powers when they were still out in space approaching and stopped the spar between his wife and Dreeve. The boy was in the middle of charging a ki wave but the tone of Gohan's voice when he said, 'stop,' left no room for argument and the growing ball disappeared. Videl lowered her arms and ran over to her husband before gasping and looking up at the sky.

"It's too soon, we're not ready yet." Videl said and Dreeve looked up trying to see whatever it was they were looking at. That's when he felt the giant powers coming from a distance and in different directions. It was nauseating because it felt like they were in all areas around him and he'd never felt this many strong powers in one place before.

"Dreeve stay here," Gohan said as a white aura engulfed him and Dreeve felt his power become insanely high. Higher than he'd ever felt before.

"I can help," he argued.

"No, you're still not ready." Without any more talk, Gohan shot away in the distance faster than the kid could follow. All that was left was a streak of white across the sky.

Sc

"No, I won't say it again. They are still too strong for you. Protect the house," Trunks' hair turned gold and he flew away as the two complaining kids followed him running out the door.

The Super Saiyan powered up to his full and searched out the nearest power. He wouldn't let these monsters invade his home.

Sc

"Report, report!" Zeke's plan was taking a turn for the worst. All of a sudden some of his men stopped responding. Others started saying something about giant powers before being cut off. The leader turned his head and his scouter picked up a power but the device exploded on his ear before he could get a proper reading and he figured out what must've happened to his men.

This was a setback but nothing he didn't have a back up plan for. The ship was leaving in three hours no matter what so they had to continue with the mission and then return after. His pod slammed into the ground in the middle of a highly populated area. The ship indented into the street forming a crater and people started running away. As he stepped out of the ship he saw a group of people start charging him. They were pathetic, leaving openings everywhere and he ended every one of their lives effortlessly.

'What is going on? Is this really Earth?' Zeke melted his body into the ground and people lost sight of the shadow that started moving across the floor and up the street.

Sc

Some of the other men were feeling the same way as they attacked helpless Earthlings, some of whom tried to fight back and failed terribly. One such alien was raising a fist to bring down on a red headed teenager but when he slammed down, the girl wasn't there. He looked up and saw a spiky black haired individual in front of him placing the girl on the ground safely so she could run away. "How weak, and we thought this planet would be our biggest challenge. When the boss hears this, all hesitation will be over and the whole armada will be here in a second."

"Guess you won't be able to tell him then," the man heard the words come from behind him but the image of the boy in front of him was still there. Suddenly it began to dissolve as the after-image faded. Gohan ended it quickly because he never reveled in taking a life. His flat hand shot through the aliens chest and punctured his heart killing him instantly.

On the other side of the world, Trunks faced off against a snake-like alien and an incredibly strong guy that looked like the hulk only pink. The snake only took a couple hits but the hulk guy was actually proving to be quite difficult. Trunks used a technique he developed recently that Gohan told him he remembered the future him using. Trunks called in Burning Attack and it incinerated the monster.

Both men shot off around the planet to areas where they felt more of these aliens and eliminated them until both of them only felt one left. They met up in the sky outside of South City looking in. The city didn't look like it was destroyed or anything and besides the wailing sirens, nothing seemed to be wrong. Nothing except for the godly power coming from somewhere inside. "Remember Trunks, no dragon balls, if any one of these people die, they die for good so let's stop any more from dying." They flew directly for the power but when they felt like it should be right there, no alien was in sight.

Trunks and Gohan lowered to the ground but didn't drop their powers. Whoever this alien was, was good at hiding and around the area people were walking and cars were driving but there was no attacking invader. Some people started running away from the two glowing fighters on the street and one man stepped towards them. This man looked like a professional body builder and raised his fists. "I'll stop these aliens," the man called out and started running over towards the Saiyans.

Suddenly an arm came out of the ground and gripped onto the man's foot swinging him towards a building fast enough to kill him. Fortunately for the man, one of the 'aliens' decided to save him. The golden haired fighter caught him and dropped down to the street before he told the man to run away. He needed no more convincing and sprinted away. Trunks looked back over at his friend who was staring at the cloud coming out of the street. Whoever this thing was, he liked making a dramatic entrance.

Zeke slowly exited the ground, getting larger as he did and moving parts of the cloud around to form arms and legs. When there were six arm shapes and two legs along with a torso and head, the body solidified into a black form with a smile on its face and nothing else. He looked so creepy with that smile but Zeke crossed all six of his arms and he knew this was going to be a good challenge. "Hello, I'm..."

Gohan did not wait for introductions and shot forward, kicking straight for the chest. Zeke crossed his arms in a different way to block the hit but even a kick in the arms was enough to hurt him greatly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the glowing yellow man coming at him fast. At the same time the black haired figure was coming at him with a fist pulled back. Right as they were about to hit him he turned into gas and Trunks' kick and Gohan's punch went through the cloud to hit each other.

The Son boy's punch grazed Trunk's shoulder spinning him up and into the air. Bulma's son hit Gohan right in the unprotected side of the torso with his kick and Gohan oofed. Zeke phased back in and spun on two of his hands, kicking Gohan over and over in the face before slamming with all four remaining arms knocking him back into a skyscraper. Trunks stopped spinning by sending a kiai behind him that stopped his momentum. He started motioning his hands in a bunch of different patterns and then pointed it at the black man. The alien looked up at the fighter who was drawing power into his hands. Zeke flew up and vanished, he moved so fast that he appeared behind Trunks and pulled back to hit him. The boy wasn't a novice and saw the ploy coming from far away. As the fist approached the back of his head he ducked and spun with the last hand motion. "Haaaaaa!" he released the energy at point blank. The yellow ball shot straight through the black cloud that appeared where the man was. Zeke made himself tangible again and nailed the teen with a barrage of punches. He didn't see Gohan coming and the boy grabbed him by the feet.

Gohan thought he'd turn into gas and fall through his fingers but the man just struggled to escape. Three of the six arms slammed down and hit Gohan but he started spinning. He spun faster and faster, bringing dust into a swirling motion that looked like a tornado. Finally he released the man sending him so fast to the floor he wasn't able to turn into gas. The ground exploded outward and a huge crater formed in the street.

Trunks got his breath back and floated next to Gohan panting. The older man didn't look like he was doing as bad as his younger counterpart but he was having trouble keeping his power this high.

Sc

Videl put Pan down on the couch and looked back at the television. Scenes of minor destruction were being shown around the world but all reports were saying that the aliens were defeated. She knew though from the three huge powers coming from the South that the battle was not yet over. She looked out the window over at Dreeve's house and thought about doing some training to help her pass the time.

The woman gasped and ran outside. She sprinted over to the old Son house and ran inside but already knew she was right. The boy's power wasn't there anymore and it wasn't in the vicinity. Her head turned towards the south and she whispered, "Don't do something stupid Dreeve."

Sc

"No stop!" Bulma tried chasing the kids but they were super fast and were almost like blurs as they ran down the hall.

"Master needs our help," they felt a drop in Trunks' power and shot out from the living room but Bulma was trying to stop them.

"He'll be fine, you can't do anything to help anyway." The blue haired woman got them to slow down and they stopped on the grass of the front lawn, "You're just not strong enough."

"It doesn't matter," Strax said. A smile formed across his face, "We'll be more help there than we will here. Don't worry, we'll stay safe mom." Bulma's mouth opened a little and the seven year old boy waved goodbye. His little five year old sister started flying after him after waving to the woman as well.

_ Why are they so much like everyone else I love? Even with the odds stacked against them they're willing to risk their lives. _She couldn't stop worrying about them since they were only children and she ran back inside to check the television. The news covering the invasion tuned in to a reporter at South City where the last alien apparently was. Bulma sighed as the reporter kept shouting about how he couldn't see anything. They've been moving too fast for her her entire life.

Sc

Gohan flew down and reached out but crashed through the opponent and landed on the crumbling pavement. He sprung back up but went through again as each time he was about to hit, Zeke perfectly timed when to fade.

Trunks pulled himself out of the hole he created in the twenty second story of the building and stood there panting. The last hit knocked the wind out of him. This creature wasn't so overpowering that they couldn't take him, his special power just made it impossible to get many hits on him.

The cloud of smoke surrounded Gohan and he started spinning but the energy signature was coming from all around him. Little parts of the cloud were turning into fists for a split second and pounding him before disappearing. Each punch seemed to hurt more than the last one and Gohan felt himself getting weaker.

A black fist shot out and this time he saw it coming. His arms shot up and grabbed the fist in mid-air pulling it down. The rest of the man appeared and the cloud disappeared as Gohan slammed his left elbow into the arm. He kept the fist in one hand as he slammed down and felt a crack. The monster screamed and used the other five fists to punch back but Gohan was expertly dodging them. He pulled back a foot and brought it up between the black alien's legs. If it wasn't a fight to the death he probably would've felt bad about such a cheap and dishonorable shot but he didn't know the anatomy of this species very well and the attack didn't do as much as he thought although it was still powerful.

With his top two arms, Zeke grabbed Gohan by the temples and smashed his head hard into the human's. The boy let go and he was getting desperate. He saw the one behind him flying forward but all he had to do was move slightly and Trunks flew past. He raised an arm and shot a blast of blue energy into the man's back shooting him through a building, and the next one, and the next one.

From high up in the sky above the fight, a little boy started down but felt an arm grab him. "What are you doing?" Strax struggled against her and tried to fly down but she strengthened her hold and pulled him back. They saw their master get shot through those buildings and he couldn't just sit around any longer.

"What are you going to do? We need a plan," Anna tried to get him to listen but he needed to save Trunks.

"I've got an idea," they turned around and floating behind them was another boy. He was taller than they were but he didn't look much older. His short black hair was spiked up and he was smiling at the others. He snuck up on them great because their focus was just on the fight below. Dreeve had been watching from a different part of the sky when he saw the other two get there.

Like Anna, he saw the level of which the fight was going on at and stayed out of it. Instead he watched carefully, until he finally found the enemy's weakness. He thought his master had figured it out as well but with the other fighter incapacitated, it was difficult for him to succeed. He explained the plan to the two other kids who decided to trust this newcomer. Down below, the dark figure had charged a huge blue ball of energy in his left palm and was aiming down at the street where Gohan was on his knees, struggling to get up.

The alien pulled back his hand getting ready to throw the ball when a small yellow ki blast flew into his larger one and exploded, blowing the larger one up in the process and creating a huge explosion in mid-air. The blast incinerated the tops of a couple buildings around but if the ball had been allowed to be thrown, it would have destroyed half the block. Zeke was caught in his explosion and plummeted to the ground where he pushed his feet down fast and caught himself. He got burned all over and felt a lot of pain from that attack but he didn't see where it came from. The gold fighter wasn't back yet and he thought the man might be down for good and he was staring right at the other man. _There must be another fighter, _he thought and looked up at the sky where sure enough, a child was sticking her tongue out and making faces at him.

He shot up into the sky so fast Anna shrieked as he neared her. The girl saw him come closer and he kicked her as she crossed her arms. She heard cracks and the power of the kick shot her flying down towards the ground. Zeke wasn't finished yet and started shooting back down when something shot out from his left and kicked him in the face. Strax pumped his fist mentally as his foot hit right on target. His look faltered as he saw it did not have the intended affect and instead of shooting the enemy to the ground, he only snapped the guy's head across and left a welt on his face. And he managed to make the dark alien even angrier.

On the ground, Gohan steadied himself and looked up as the monster he was fighting grabbed the little boy by the foot and swung him into the closest building. _Who is that? _Gohan shook off his dizziness and powered back up when he saw him. Above the alien, his pupil was descending fast while sending out some ki in his direction. Dreeve was there but there was no time to lecture him and tell him to go home, the boy had a plan and he was trying to tell him something.

Zeke saw Gohan lift off the ground and decided it was time to finish this and get out of here. He already had what he needed to report. Zeke got ready and was about to turn into a cloud as Gohan got closer to him but suddenly he felt something on his back. The demi-Saiyan watched his pupil latch onto the enemy and saw the now stuck solid alien's eyes open wide. During the fight, whenever someone was touching the alien, he couldn't use his special power and he was going to get Trunks to help him once he found out but it was too late and Trunks got thrown. He could still feel his friend's energy but he couldn't continue in this battle any longer. Gohan flew faster forming a fist with his right hand. Zeke had never been one to dodge because he could always just let the punches go right through him so he wasn't fast enough. Gohan hit him straight in the gut hard and Dreeve felt his master's fist on the other side of the man's thick body.

"Ugh," Zeke dropped his gaze from the half-Saiyan and the little boy let go of his back. The alien started falling to the floor and his eyes rolled to the back of his head but right before it hit, it turned into a shadow and slid across the bumpy pavement.

"We have to stop him," Gohan said, the time to rest was not yet and Dreeve looked at him oddly.

"Can't we just, you know, let him leave?" The boy's innocence reminded Gohan of himself as a kid, most of the time.

"Impossible, we figured out a while ago that they have no idea what kind of people Earthlings are. Their only basis for how strong we are is from the fights we've had with them. If this guy gets away knowing that humans are naturally weak creatures... it will speed up the countdown to when they actually invade."

"You mean this isn't the invasion?" He asked startled by the revelation.

The two of them were flying after the power as it maneuvered through the city streets. The dark patch on the floor cut into an alleyway and they lost it because everything was dark in there. "If this was the invasion you would've known because the ground would've been shaking this entire time. Explosions would constantly be rocking the Earth and more than fifteen powers would have arrived, it would have been thousands." The mere thought of thousands of these creatures was unfathomable. A ship shot out from the darkness and into the sky past the two of their heads. It looked like an old Saiyan space pod only slightly larger and was labelled, 'IDE' in big red letters.

Gohan didn't wait for his student and shot up into the sky after the ship. Dreeve didn't try to keep up, the man was far too fast for him. The spiky haired Saiyan got into the upper atmosphere but his Saiyan genetics allowed him to survive up there longer than most other species. He saw the small ship dock with a large one that looked like Frieza's. It was now or never, "Kame..."

Zeke landed in the shuttle bay and ran into the control room. "Let's go now," he shouted and punched some buttons onto the keyboard that notified the Commander.

He coughed up some blood on the panel and heard the pilot call over, "Sir you're the first one back and we haven't reached the deadline..."

"JUST GO!" He shouted and the man started up the engine. A big image of Rowan appeared on the screen in front of Zeke and the dark man coughed a bunch before starting, "Sir, mission complete, they might be after us..."

"Huge energy signature coming right for us," the pilot screamed.

Zeke looked out the back window and Rowan could see it through his own screen back from the repairing Dreadnaught. "There isn't much time. This planet," he coughed a few more times and blood spurted out on the camera so Rowan was watching his mission leader through a red tint.

"What about it?" He asked desperately, that giant blue light out the back window was getting bigger and closer with each second.

"Hyperdrive in ten seconds, I don't think were gonna make it!" The pilot pressed all the buttons but nothing was making them go fast enough to escape.

"These people are weak!" Zeke shouted. "There are only a few that can actually stand up for them, the rest of the planet is a level 1, maybe even a 0," Zeke smiled and finished, "sir, mission accomplished." Rowan heard a scream come from that side of the line as a bright blue light enveloped the screen and it went to static.

The room was silent for a few seconds and then it began buzzing with noise. Trussir and Prill argued, the lead admiral thought they should still be careful since Zeke was defeated but Prill was shouting victory and how they should attack now with everything they have. Zeke's testimony that it could be a level one or zero planet meant that the general population was so weak they had no military value to the Empire. A main reason for taking over planets was to add to the variety of aliens in their arsenal. The planet could still be worth conquering for the resources, and the slaves if the people were better for nothing else. Plus they needed to get revenge for the decimation of their fleet.

Syria rested back in her seat and muttered curses about how Zeke couldn't possibly have been defeated by level ones. "You hear me?" she shouted at the two arguing men, promptly shutting them up. "Even if the majority of them are ones, they still have tens. Zeke was himself from a level eight planet and he was one of their strongest, if not the strongest one of their race. We can't underestimate them any more than we already have." She was with the group that initially met Son Goku. He appeared in the throne room and told them to stop being evil. She remembered how the whole planet seemed to shake as he powered up and how it took the King's royal guard and finally the King to take him down. She was only there to report on their progress in the 249 galaxy but after the fight, the King gave her new orders to redirect her fleet for Earth.

Rowan nodded his head, he'd been silent the whole time but now he spoke up. "Reconstruction will go on as planned. When the new recruits get here from the training planet we can speed up the rebuilding process but until then, nothing has changed. Dismissed." The others got up and left but not before Prill shot him a look saying, 'this discussion is not over.'

Sc

Gohan dropped out of the sky fast. Dreeve looked up after turning away from the blinding light in the sky and felt it traveling away from the planet. Up in the air though, his master was plummeting and he felt his power all but disappear. He started flying up to catch him but saw someone else shooting up to him. The purple haired man from before caught his friend and lowered down to the street where the battle mainly took place.

The seven year old followed the pair down to the street. Once on the pavement, Trunks ran over to the little boy who was on his knees next to the fallen little girl. "Anna, Anna!" Strax shook his sister with his good arm, the other broke when he crashed into the building at over two hundred miles per hour.

Dreeve walked past his master and over towards the other two. "It's all my fault," he said looking down at the limp girl. Her arms were bent oddly and there was blood coming out of the back of her head but she was still breathing.

"Don't worry about it," Trunks said with a smile as he reached into his pocket.

Strax forgot his right arm was broken and hit his unsuspecting master straight in the jaw. If Trunks wasn't so tuckered out, he probably wouldn't have felt it, but Strax felt it much more and shouted through clenched teeth, "'Don't worry about it? She's dying and you say, 'Don't worry about it!'" Trunks backhanded the boy into the ground. With his other hand he pulled out a weird looking bean and plopped it right into Anna's mouth. He closed her jaw and she swallowed.

Strax got back up and clenched both his fists sending pain coursing through his body. Then he watched his sister's eyes open and she slowly got to her feet. She stretched and looked around before realizing everyone was staring at her except for the unconscious guy on the road. "Did we win?" she asked and Dreeve let out a sigh of relief.

Trunks laughed, "Yeah we did, how'd that happen?" He looked around amazed at the three kids around him.

Anna smiled and pointed at the taller boy, "he happened." Strax turned around and saw the boy still looking upset that Anna was so hurt. At first he kind of blamed the boy too but she was ok so there was no need for what ifs.

"Yeah it was all his plan," Strax agreed and Dreeve put a hand behind his head and smiled sheepishly.

Trunks' smile disappeared and looked over at his friend. _So this is the kid he goes on and on about. It's no wonder he likes the kid so much, he looks just like him. _The victorious grin appeared back on Trunks' face, "Before we go on more about your amazing plan," he said jokingly, "let's make sure everybody's okay." He pulled out some more beans, "Here kid, Dreeve right?" The boy nodded, "Go take one and give the other to your master. You take one too Strax." He flicked the boys their beans and Strax ate his but Dreeve handed it back saying he really wasn't hurt before giving Gohan his.

Gohan opened his eyes and sat up, all he remembered from after firing the Kamehameha wave was feeling really tired and then nothing. Now he was in the street and surrounded by four smiling people as they watched him sit up. He looked around and realized who was around him as he regained his bearings. "Nice to see you again," Gohan said to the little girl who giggled and crossed her arms so her armpits would be protected. Strax looked at his sister and back at the man and was confused how they met each other since he was almost always with his sister except when they bathed.

"Dreeve," Gohan started seriously and the other two kids stepped back. "Not only did you disobey my direct order to stay home, but you put everyone at risk by coming here, and, and," Dreeve closed his eyes tight and prepared for anything, "and I'm very proud of you." He opened his eyes and realized he was leaning back but his master had a wide smile on his face. "You figured out his weakness and today we won because of your quick thinking."

"Okay, okay, now," Trunks began, "let's go celebrate. Who's up for pizza?" Dreeve smiled and nodded but the other three moaned.

"How can you even think about food after that sensu?" Gohan asked his friend.

"Easy," Trunks responded and turned around, "I didn't take one," he started limping away and the others all laughed. "Let's go," he lifted up and the kids followed behind him.

Gohan started up into the air when he heard a shout to stop from behind him. A lady with a microphone was followed by a cameraman as they ran cautiously down the destroyed street. "Did you do it? Did you stop the aliens?"

Gohan looked straight into the camera and was getting a hang of this, "This was a fraction of their true power. We only got a taste of what they can do. Next time they'll hit harder, and the damage will be much worse." He lifted up into the sky where his friends were waiting. Looking back down he called out, "This is war whether you believe it or not and we are still far from being prepared for this threat."

For the rest of the day, Gohan's message aired on every television in the world on every channel. Lists of the deceased were read along with the injured and missing and eyewitnesses were videotaped by the news. It was like tornadoes ripped through these areas before one of Earth's fighters came and saved them.

After Trunks and Dreeve had some pizza, which was two slices for the boy and two pies for the Saiyan, they decided it was time to visit the Lookout. It had been a while since they'd talked with Tien and they needed to talk about the possible consequences of this small force.

"Where are we going?" Anna asked as they started flying higher and higher towards somewhere she didn't recognize.

Gohan looked back at his friend's pupil and grinned, "We're going to go talk to God."

**A/n Hope you enjoyed the latest chapter. Leave a comment, review, or question. I'll update again soon.**

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	4. Chapter 4

I don't own DBZ.

The world was in a panic after the invasion of a confirmed fifteen aliens. The death toll was just under a hundred for humans but most of them were black belts and wrestlers who thought they were ready to take on these creatures. As others ran away, these people who'd been visiting a dojo once a week for a couple of months or even years thought they were prepared. The revelation that those they thought were the strongest among them couldn't do anything scared people bad. For the first time people started talking openly on tv and the radio about how those two fighters who told them about the aliens were the only ones qualified to teach them how to get strong enough to stop them.

The news was centered only on this until the army mobilized. King Furry ordered the mobilization to stop days after it started because his advisors had ordered it assuming he'd agree. His words to the world were, "Guns and modern weaponry will have no affect of this type of threat. Our only chance is to follow the lead of those whom have already paved the way."

The night of the invasion, the five fighters gathered on Kami's Lookout where they met the three eyes bald man and his little albino friend. He asked them not to call him Kami after they did and Trunks and Gohan were laughing on the floor. Tien said that there was a high probability the scouts were able to report their finding and it wouldn't take much longer for the fleet to come. It was likely their pace was sped up.

Now the fighters returned home to get some rest after their long day but when they woke up it was to the sound of loud noises.

When Trunks got up he heard shouting outside his window and pulled back the curtains. Standing on his front lawn were over thirty people, all looking up at him. Opening the window he called out, "What do you want?"

"We want you to train us," the man in front shouted. Trunks' jaw dropped, it took them three years and a mini invasion to finally get the message that they weren't ready.

He walked outside and didn't see one person that he was willing to train. They all looked like they were looking down on him for being younger than him. He went back inside and typed up a paper before printing thirty-three copies and walking back out. After handing them out and seeing the shocked looks on all their faces. "This is the routine you should start out with doing, after you do this for two weeks, you will find amazing improvement in your strength, speed, and endurance."

"Fifty mile run!"

"Two hundred handstand push ups?"

"These things are impossible," everyone seemed to be in agreement.

Trunks glared at the crowd and they took a step back. His demeanor showed he wasn't playing games, "Once you're able to do all of that as a regular routine, then I'll start training you."

Some of the men growled and crumpled up the paper, throwing it on his front lawn. Others folded it and put it in their pockets and one man looked at Trunks and asked, "Why did you tell us where to find you if you weren't going to help?"

The purple haired teen thought hard and once the two of them were alone he said, "To weed out the weaklings and those dedicated enough to try. See those men," he pointed at a few who had thrown theirs to the ground, "I could not have trained them if I tried. And them," he pointed at some who folded the paper, "they at least have a chance. When, _if,_ they return it won't matter if they can do what's required of them on the sheet, because it'll show that they're willing to try and get trained again. My thoughts are that not one of you come back and ask to be trained again. Am I right?" The man looked down at his feet and wanted to ask again but if the stuff on that sheet really was similar to what he'd have to do day in and day out... He backed up and walked away shamefully.

Gohan awoke and felt a presence on his front lawn. There was an old woman of ninety years old standing in front of his house. After going outside and greeting her, he discovered she'd come to train and had to regretfully decline her since she was too old. He wasn't going to lie to the woman, she wasn't fit to even train though he knew if she was younger she would've been a person he'd want on his team.

Weeks went by and training intensified as both Gohan and Trunks introduced their pupils to the Gravity Room. It was the best way they knew how to train. Not only was it difficult to train and the simplest task became challenges and work, but it was easy to set goals in there: What was the next gravity intensity they wanted to go to? How many push ups or pull ups or laps or flying laps they could do at said gravity? The training became harder overnight. Dreeve requested something and Gohan cursed himself that he didn't think about it earlier. He informed Trunks and Bulma and the other teacher implemented it with his students as well.

At first Gohan gave the boy training clothes his dad had from when he was a kid. They were heavier and worked the same as training weights, making every task harder when they were outside of the GR. Trunks made some makeshift ones but he never got a chance to give them to his pupils because Bulma had gotten right to work after the idea was mentioned. Not only did she make suits for the kids, but also for Gohan and Trunks. Somehow she inserted a dial that could be turned to apply more weight spread into the clothes. Both Gohan and Trunks were amazed at the design and how they couldn't feel the potential weight inside it, it was amazing to say the least.

Gohan was watching in on his pupil's training with his wife inside the GR and the fight was close. Videl and he were battling at thirty times Earth's gravity and it didn't look like they were struggling at all. Dreeve was also wearing his weighted clothes that added an extra hundred pounds to him that in this gravity, was unbearable. He pushed through it though and Videl punched straight for his face. He moved his head to the left slightly and grabbed her arm with both of his.

Gohan smiled, this was it. Dreeve pulled her towards his body with one hand and used the other to slam the approaching body to the floor. Videl's body crashed out of the air and into the metal floor. Her back was on the ground and she opened her eyes to see a fist hovering above her face, shaking violently since Dreeve couldn't stay still. The woman smiled at him with his hand above her face and spun around, kicking his legs out from under him and sending him smashing hard and fast to the floor of the GR.

"Ugh, haha, ugh," Dreeve landed flat on his front and rolled to his back to get the pressure off his face. Videl got up first and went and turned off the machine. The problem with the training suit Dreeve was adorned in was that you couldn't lower the weight quickly. It couldn't drop below fifty pounds in total and it could only increase fast, not decrease. Bulma said it was a major design flaw but they all said the suits were still amazing. Even with the gravity back to normal, Dreeve struggled to get back to his feet.

After leaving the chamber, Gohan walked over to the boy and told him to get the weighted clothes off. He wore the black suit under his orange gi and had to take both off before putting his gi back on. The master then patted Dreeve on the back and said, "Great job." The boy turned and smiled wide, he'd never taken Videl down like that before. In a real fight he would've continued with that punch to the face and crushed his enemy.

"Thank you Master," Dreeve bowed and winced. Gohan chuckled and told him to go rest, he was going to go over to Trunks' house to train.

The black haired boy stood up straight and said fast, "I'm fine, I don't need to sleep. C-can I come to the Briefs with you?" Gohan smiled and nodded. The boy had grown closer with Trunks' pupils over the last few months and they were his only friends since he considered the Sons his family.

Sc

The young girl paddled faster and faster, she knew it was around here somewhere and she saw the dot on the horizon. _It must be him _she sped up and the row boat skimmed on top of the water.

Master Roshi felt a twinge of power coming towards his island but it wasn't near strong enough to be anyone he knew. 18 was sleeping upstairs as was Marron so he got up and walked out the front door. He looked across the water and saw white splash coming up around something as it sped through the waves towards him. He didn't move from his spot on the beach as the person paddled right off the water onto the sand and kept paddling all the way up to him.

The girl had short black hair only falling down to her shoulders. Her eyes were a deep blue and Roshi stared at her waiting for something to happen. Usually by this time in a stare down someone would break and start talking but neither was willing to say the first word. After ten minutes of the two staring at each other, the girl jumped seven feet vertically and rose her leg. On the way down she brought down her foot right for the old man's head. Roshi was preparing for something like this and thought the girl might've just been resting because it was a long trip.

He stepped back and the girl missed his head by an inch and crashed into the sand sending it up in the air all around her. Roshi moved his head to the right as a fist came out of the cloud and it just missed him. The girl had an angry expression on her face and her rage gave her a boost in speed as she dove from her spot at the master. Roshi ducked beneath her as she passed over and grabbed one of her feet, swinging her down. The turtle hermit thought it was over and let go of her but she clenched her fists in the sand, grabbing handfuls of the stuff as she struggled back up. Her attitude hadn't changed but the master jumped backwards and backflipped as he did onto the roof of Kame House. "Why have you come to my island?"

The girl was about to jump after him but stopped and shouted up at him first, "To train." She jumped and landed on the roof, sprinting in zig zags for the master before spin kicking for his head.

"WHO'S THE DEAD MAN WHO WOKE ME UP?!" The old man froze in fear and forgot about the foot coming his way and it slammed straight into his face, knocking him off the building and on the beach. The black haired girl grinned and almost jumped after him when the ground beneath her shattered and a hand shot through the roof. It grabbed onto her left foot and pulled her through the roof making the hole twice as big. She was dizzy and opened her eyes to see a confused but angry blonde woman holding her by her ankle upside down. "Who are you?" 18 asked angrily at the girl. For her, this woman's strength was enough to make her want to test her own power again. She swung back and on the way towards the woman, punched up for her jaw. 18 didn't move as the fist collided with a piece of metal in her chin and asked again but angrier, "Who are you?"

The girl held in her scream but didn't try to punch the thing again. That hit made her hand feel like rubber and she pulled back the other fist but aimed for the chest this time.

Before the girl knew what happened, she was being held by the neck against the floor and the blonde woman was glaring down into her eyes, "I'll ask you one last time, who are you?" 18 started putting pressure on the neck.

"Just kill me!" the black haired girl screamed straight at 18's face. 18 was surprised but showed no emotion and kept a straight face as she raised a palm, the one that wasn't holding the girl by the neck, and held it right up to her face as energy began to grow in it. The girl's eyes opened wide but she stopped struggling and laid there waiting for it to happen.

"18, stop," the woman turned around and saw the old man standing at the window but he wasn't looking back at her, he was looking at the door. The blonde turned around and saw her little daughter staring terrified from the doorframe. The black haired girl stayed silent with her eyes transfixed on the yellow light that felt hot on her face, being only inches away. The android released her throat and stood up. She walked over to the door but her daughter backed off. 18 acted like it didn't matter and turned the other way down the hall.

Now Roshi hopped down from the windowsill and stood next to the girl who had her hand resting over her throat. "You are very stupid."

She stood up and glared back at the old man. "Shut up," she shook her head furiously, "just shut up! I'm leaving." She started for the door but Roshi moved fast and ran in front of her. "What are you doing? Don't you want me to leave?"

"When did I say that?" The girl thought for a second and knew he was right but... "You attacked me, no one else did anything that wasn't justified. Now why are you here and answer truthfully because I'll know if you're lying?" Roshi had a large purple shell on his back and it was hard to take him seriously because of it, but he still seemed to be serious nonetheless.

Figuring that it was over now she admitted, "I came to find you."

"Why?"

"So I could test my strength."

"Why?"

"Why what?" She asked annoyed.

"Why did you want to test your strength?" Roshi was keeping his patience although the girl seemed to be losing hers.

Exasperated the girl huffed and said, "So that I could kill the aliens."

To the girl's annoyance, Roshi still was not satisfied and asked, "Why?"

She lost it and screamed, "Because they killed my parents!" The girl realized what she just shouted and stepped back away from the man. There was no reason to tell the man this, why would he care, why would anyone?

"So why did you come to me?" This question caught the girl off guard. "It must've been hard to search me out when there are fighters infinitely stronger than me advertising their whereabouts at all times."

There was a reason she didn't go to Gohan or to Trunks. There was a reason she spent the last three months training in solitude out in the woods. She looked straight into the martial arts master's eyes and spoke, "They let her die. While this monster tore through my neighborhood, those two _heroes,_" she said the word with disgust in her voice, "thought the other aliens were more important. This one alien killed everyone on my block, while I hid in the crawl space. My neighbors, my parents, everyone was killed and then they decided to come and stop the beast. I never want to see those two."

Roshi didn't interrupt once in the little speech because he could tell this girl never spoke to anyone for this long in months. She needed to tell someone, and he listened. Then he walked straight up to her as the girl continued glaring at him and he pulled her towards him. She didn't know what was happening until she felt herself wrapped in his arms being held close to him. The old man knew what the girl was going through and she started crying, she didn't know why but for the first time tears came to her eyes.

After the moment he pulled away from her and she cleared her eyes. "You don't have to leave, training with a master is better than getting stronger on your own. You have power but your style and form are sloppy." She looked pissed but was glad he was being honest with her and not treating her like the eight year old she was.

"You're going to train me?" she asked, trying not to sound too eager.

Roshi froze and images of his students flashed through his mind, "No. I don't take on students anymore." He had a far off look in his eyes but shook it off and smirked. His sunglasses glinted some sun and he rubbed his beard, "You'll be taught by that woman downstairs." For the first time since she landed on his beach, Roshi saw the girl look nervous. "Don't worry she's not always that angry, you just woke her up is all." The fact that waking this woman up was enough of an excuse for her to kill a random child made the girl feel uneased.

"Uhh, thanks," she said and looked at the floor. This was a prideful girl and Roshi knew it was hard for her, "you know, for saving me." She had thought she wasn't worth saving if she wasn't strong enough to avenge her parents, but training to be stronger and learning to get her revenge was a much better course of action.

"Haha, don't thank me yet," again the master got the girl to swallow hard and she left the room. He watched her walk out and start down the stairs where 18 was fuming. Often he wished he could feel the android's ki so he would know what she was feeling but that damned Dr. Gero had to go and tear her apart and rebuild her. Even with her close relationship with her daughter, Roshi occasionally saw glimpses of her former self surface, like a moment ago.

The blonde woman pushed a hair strand out from in front of her left eye. She put it behind her ear and sighed as she leaned on the counter. Her anger was slowly going down and she was muttering curses at herself for getting so worked up in the first place. She'd almost killed a person, a kid! And what's worse she almost did it in front of her eight year old daughter. "Umara."

18 spun around and faced the stairs. The bad thing about not having a ki that people could sense was that she couldn't sense them either. This way the little girl was easily able to sneak up on her while she was absorbed in her own thoughts. "What?" She asked while trying not to sound too hostile.

"My name," the girl Umara continued, "You kept asking who I was, it's Umara." 18 could see that the girl didn't look hurt, but she could also see visible red lines where her fingers were around the girl's neck. "Will you train me?" Eighteen looked up in shock at the girl's eyes. The deep blue reminded her of a Super Saiyan and she had that intensity as well. She was as tall as her own daughter, who was also pretty tall for her age.

"Why?" 18 asked and the girl looked visibly uncomfortable.

"The old man asked the same question, then he said you'd train me once I told him." She dodged the question entirely and it wasn't lost on 18 but the android wasn't completely clueless. This girl had streaks down her face and she'd obviously been crying. She'd already caused the girl enough pain, enough for one day.

"For me to accept you must accept this one term first," 18 had to know before she got started, "Why you train is none of my business, who you're training for isn't either. But if I train you, you will _fight _with me, whenever I ask, and you will do whatever I tell you. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Umara didn't hesitate, why would she. After seeing what this woman could do, she was hoping they would be fighting together real soon.

"Good, now show me your stance." Umara complied, "No not like that, here lift your arm three inches and plant your right foot..." Marron watched from the stairs as her mother went straight to work, helping the new girl become a better fighter. Her blonde hair was falling behind her in a ponytail and she smiled cautiously. 18 had been behaving erratically for a while now but recently it had been getting worse. When she saw her mom almost obliterate Umara, fear filled her but not shock, she somewhat expected something like that to happen sooner or later. She was just glad it all seemed to work out in the end.

Umara gazed over 18's shoulder at the girl staring at her from the stairs causing the woman to turn and see her daughter, "Marron come down and meet Umara." The black haired girl remembered catching a glimpse of her back upstairs but now she was being properly introduced. "She will be your new training partner, you will help her get as good as you are."

"As if," Marron laughed and outstretched a hand to the frowning girl. Umara looked at it and decided it probably wasn't good to start out pissing off a family member even if shaking the girl's hand wasn't on the top of her to do list.

_'As if?' Does she think she's better than me? And if she is does she think I can't get stronger? _Umara shook her hand and squeezed but Marron squeezed back harder, hurting her hand. Both kept smiles on their faces while they did it and then Marron winked at the girl and released her from the vice grip.

"Now," Eighteen wasn't annoyed at having another person around the house, it was lonely there and she'd never say it out loud but she really missed her husband. Sure it was another mouth to feed but this was going to be great, she just didn't know what to make her do. All her training regimens were incredibly difficult and she didn't know if the girl could handle them. "Let's begin," she started up with them swimming laps around the island using only their legs and then laps around the shore. Running on the sand was hard enough but they had to do it on their hands. Marron was doing laps around Umara who was struggling on her second one while Eighteen flew above them in the sky doing much more intensive training. Ki balls were flying all around her and she was dodging, deflecting, or shooting another ball into the oncoming one for practice. There were all these possibilities in the real fights, plus one more. At the same time she let five balls fly towards her and crossed her arms to her shoulders. The balls exploded and the girls looked up for a second. The cloud cleared and 18 was panting but she got right back in it and this gave Umara a kickstart, sending her running faster on her hands than before.

Later Umara watched, or attempted to watch as the mother and daughter flew around fighting. Marron was amazing, she liked to think Eighteen was in a league of her own so as not to compare herself, but Marron was a girl of the same age and was forming balls of energy and attacking 18 with ferocity. The woman got above her daughter and formed two balls of energy in her hands but her daughter was cackling with electricity. The blonde haired girl twisted her upper half of her body from below her mother and charged a huge amount of purple ki in her hands. "Galick GUN!" She screamed and a purple beam of light emitted from her hands up towards her mother. Eighteen threw one of the yellow balls catching the top of the beam and holding it there before flying down in front of the stream of energy with her other arm outstretched with the other ki ball. Marron was using both arms for the attack and couldn't release fast enough. The ball of ki in 18's hand was slammed straight into her chest and she plummeted into the water, sending a huge wave to crash on shore soaking Umara.

The girl wasn't worried about getting wet though and looked back up to see the purple beam overcome the small yellow ball and fly into space. Eighteen was just hovering above the water but her daughter hadn't risen yet. Umara shouted at her but the woman didn't seem to plan on doing anything. The eight year old had to take things into her own hands and swam out to the place she thought the crash was. 18 watched amusedly as her new student dove underwater. It would've taken her about two seconds to get down there, grab her daughter and fly back up but she wanted to see what type of person this Umara was. So far, she seemed like a good kid, and as Umara surfaced with Marron in hand she thought, _I'll have to ask Roshi about that whole, 'Just kill me,' thing later._

Sc/ tl

"Yeah man, everyone's got one, even 18."

"I've got two myself."

"Maybe I should think about becoming a master," the two Saiyans that were talking to the fat man tried to hold in their laughter.

"The only thing you're the master of is mooching," Gohan and Trunks started laughing and the cat walked over to them with baskets in both of his paws, "Here you go, try not to rely on these. You're going to wind up killing each other and a sensu isn't going to fix that." The boys nodded at Korin before thanking the two and heading off.

After a minute the man turned, "I'm not really mooching right?" The cat laughed and walked away from the chunky samurai. "I help out around here, hey!" Yajirobe chased his furry friend around the tower.

Trunks and Gohan were flying back down Korin's tower and when they hit the trees they changed course for Capsule Corp. Gohan had left Dreeve to spar with Trunks' pupils while he was gone and they both had a secret wager on their own kids where the loser had to take the other and his pupil/pupils to lunch.

They got back to the lawn and were surprised to find it still a mess of a battleground. It was hard to believe these were the same kids they met over a year ago. Trunks was seventeen now and Gohan was twenty six. Dreeve was now eight and Gohan thought he was more powerful than both of Trunks' kids which is why he pitted him up against them both at the same time.

Anna was unconscious on the grass when they got there but Dreeve and Strax were trading heavy blows, neither attempting to block the other's attacks. Dreeve got kicked up in the chin and then elbowed down on the top of Strax's head. Trunks' pupil jumped and came down punching with his right across Dreeve's left cheek. Gohan saw blood spurt out of the boy's mouth but he didn't stop. Gohan's apprentice waited for Strax to hit again and this time ducked beneath it. Not hitting his mark, the other boy's follow through carried him over Dreeve's hunched form who punched with both fists into the other's chest. As Strax came back down at a loss for air, Dreeve jumped and came down fast with his elbow, slamming down into Stax's gut and plowing him into the dirt.

Gohan thought Trunks would make a witty remark about how his kids should've won but like Gohan, he was more concerned about their well being right now. That beating went beyond a normal spar for these kids. Gohan checked on his pupil first, looking over his wounds and giving him a sensu from his basket. _Sorry Korin, I might be coming back for more sooner than I thought._

Trunks force fed his kids until they looked fine and sat up. "What happened, why were you fighting so roughly?" Trunks asked and Gohan have Dreeve a look that showed it was meant for all of them.

The kids just looked confused though, "What do you mean?" Strax started, "You two constantly break each others' bones while training. And you're both really strong so we have to start trying harder and be willing to go farther to get stronger." Strax's pride was hurt worst by the invasion. He reminded Trunks a lot of his own father. When he couldn't protect his sister and she got hurt he became infuriated and was angry that his attacks did little to affect the alien. This anger fueled his training and he'd been improving in leaps and bounds.

Unfortunately for him, Dreeve was also panicked but by the amount of damage such a small force could create. Now he understood why Earth's old fighters risked going into space to fight the aliens instead of just waiting on Earth and taking them on. If what his master said about the invasion force was true, and that there'd be thousands of them, they all needed to be much stronger than they were now.

"You know, you are much stronger than I was at your age." Dreeve looked up and tilted his head at his master. The look showed disbelief but Gohan kept smiling and continued, "By your age I'd already saved the planet and fought with the ruler of the universe. In space when I was five years old, I became much stronger through experience. It was through fights like the one you just had with your friends that drastically increased my strength." Dreeve looked over at his friends who were looking excited as they listened to Gohan.

"You three are some of the strongest humans in history." Trunks agreed.

"That's not strong enough," Strax shouted excitedly. Anna jumped up in glee and was ready to start fighting again. "We've got to be the strongest in the universe!" Dreeve flew over and attacked the shouting boy.

"Wait," Gohan called out and the kids all stopped in mid-air with fists pulled back. A huge grumbling noise came from Dreeve's master and he scratched the back of his head, "Trunks is going to take us all out to lunch. Aren't you Trunks?" The man sighed wishing his students had been the ones to win and nodded. "We'll continue this when we get back."

Strax agreed and he and his sister flew down. Dreeve came over next to his master and asked him a question that had been on his mind for a while now. "When are we going to meet 18's pupil?" He had been introduced to 18 half a year before on a visit to Kame Island when Gohan and he were flying around the world for part of their training. He'd heard that she had a new girl pupil that was training with her and Marron and was using that as an excuse to go visit.

Gohan looked down at the boy questioningly who then turned aside with red cheeks. "Why?" he paused and then added, "If you want to go visit Marron you can."

"Marron! I said I wanted to g-go and meet the new student." _How did he know?!_ Dreeve wasn't very good at hiding it when they met the blonde women and upon seeing Marron he became a stuttering little kid like when Gohan first met him. Actually, any time anyone brought her up he became a blubbering fool.

"I know what you _said,_" Gohan chuckled as the boy became more red, "and the answer is soon, we'll visit them soon." After 18 told him about what her student thought about him and Trunks, he was pretty sure the next time he visited Kame House it wasn't going to be an enjoyable time for anyone.

Dreeve smiled, "Good, I mean, that's cool, I guess."

**A/n Another chapter in, Reviews are much appreciated. Hope you enjoy!**


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own DBZ

The spiky black haired Super Saiyan pounded his fist into the mountain again and again creating a crater deeper and deeper into the ground. Villages all around the countryside were staying calm as these rumblings had started to become natural to them. Gohan was angry as he smashed the mountain again sending rocks flying everywhere. Videl, Dreeve, Trunks, both of his students, they were all improving amazingly, but he was standing still as they rushed forward.

Yes, he was the strongest warrior left on the planet but he knew he still wasn't strong enough. He spent seven years barely training at all and then Majin Buu attacked. He was pathetic and hated that because he'd spent so much time relaxing and studying, he was weaker than his father and Vegeta. Then he got his Mystic power up, it felt amazing and made him so much stronger, but he used that as his excuse to stop training again. For the five years after Majin Buu's defeat, he was so confident, so arrogant in his own abilities that he went back to being a scholar. Even Videl, who accepted she'd never be the strongest, kept up her training a little bit during those five years but Gohan, he let Vegeta and his father keep improving while he stood still.

When his father fought on the other side of the galaxy Gohan's jaw had dropped because he realized just how much stronger his father had become, how much stronger than him. Then when they had their battle in space, he caught glimpses of Vegeta taking on thirty to forty enemies at once with perfect technique and a power that had surpassed his own even in Mystic state. He felt just as pathetic as when he laid there in the forest knowing that a fat pink blob had defeated him so easily. Fighting K'luk'fruk would have still been difficult but he wouldn't have been so greatly injured during the battle if he had just maintained his training.

It didn't take long for Gohan to regain his form and his technique when he began training again. He thought this was the most intense training of his life because in all the other scenarios there had been other warriors to back him up, others that he thought were stronger than he was and would be able to win if he failed. Now he knew that if he failed, the Earth was doomed, and he couldn't do anything to make himself stronger. Every strength increase he got seemed insignificant when he saw how much stronger Trunks was becoming. There wasn't a time in the last five fights when Gohan had been able to match his friend at the Super Saiyan 2 level.

He finally stopped smashing the wall and looked up at the sky. _What am I doing wrong? Why can't I ascend, why can't I be strong like you father?_ Gohan took to the air and started flying out of the hole he created. He desperately wanted to increase his strength, but through all his efforts he could only get a small bit stronger.

The Saiyan warrior froze in mid-air thinking of ways to ascend, ways to reach that third tier. _Maybe..._ he powered up, moving first into Super Saiyan, and then the ascended form. He felt himself get to his maximum in that form and his body tried to push him into his Mystic form as he pushed more and more energy out of his body. He was expelling so much gold light that people for miles could see a glow on the horizon. His body kept telling him to move to the next state but his mind was stopping him, _it's this form it's unnatural. True Saiyans can't transform like this, they have to move straight from Super Saiyan 2 to Super Saiyan 3. _"Ahhh, AHHHH," he started screaming as a whole other level of energy starting pushing out of his body. "It's not enough!" he yelled and the ground started shaking far below him.

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"Master do you..." Strax's head snapped to the side. They were training just after sunset and the team at Capsule Corp. was used to feeling energy from around the world fluctuate when their friends were training. Right now however, it didn't feel like any other time before and besides the power being ridiculously high, it seemed unstable.

Trunks interrupted his pupil, "Yes, I feel that. We're going, follow me," he shot off into the air and Anna cast a glance at her brother that said 'What's going on?' but Strax just shot up after the purple haired demi-Saiyan. _Ok then,_ she shot after them as fast as she could to try and keep up.

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At Kami House the four inhabitants were eating dinner quickly. The two girls were trying to finish their food as fast as possible because 18 would have them back to training as soon as _she_ was done with her food. She wouldn't wait for everyone else to be finished. Suddenly 18, Roshi, and Marron shot their heads to the wall and Umara looked over to see what was wrong. Telling by the looks on their faces something was happening but it was only when the ground began to rumble and then start shaking violently that she asked loudly, "What's happening?"

"Gohan's trying something and he's risking tearing the planet apart by doing it," the Turtle Hermit said standing completely still in the kitchen while the others were trying hard to keep their balance. _Gohan, you have to stop, there's no way... _The old man felt the ginormous power leap forward again and the ground began to make even him feel unstable on it.

"We have to stop him," the girl shouted. Unlike the others she had absolutely no faith in the man and now that he was risking people's lives she wanted to go and stop him herself.

"No," 18 said and a smirk formed on her face. Umara and Marron looked surprised because 18's lips rarely formed anything close to a smile. "Hopefully he succeeds, if he does, we might all be spared a horribly painful death at the hands of our merciless evil invaders.

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_Almost there,_ "AHHHHHH," the twenty six year old shouted as he expelled every bit of his strength into this. He knew the ground below him was shaking but that's how he knew it was working. That's what happened the first time he turned into a Super Saiyan 2, it's how everyone described his father's power up to a Super Saiyan 3. His mind stayed put though and he could only think about how weak he was, how much he was letting everyone down, again. The end of his hair started to expand, lengthen until it started stretching down his back.

Gohan was too focused to notice but three forms had appeared a mile away from him in the sky and Trunks was watching in awe as his friend's power kept increasing. Strax was struggling to stay next to his master's side and Anna was floating behind her master because if she was to move to the side she felt she would be thrown by the sheer force getting thrown off of Gohan's body. The ground beneath Gohan caved in, then caved in again with a much larger circumference flattening trees and the ground into a huge indent on the Earth.

"If you don't stop you're going to rip the world apart!" Strax shouted but Gohan couldn't hear him. He felt his master's hand on his shoulder and looked up.

"He can't stop," Trunks turned back to the bright glow in the sky that lit up the area like it was daytime not midnight like it really was, _not when he's so close._

"Raa, raaaaa, ahhhh," Gohan threw his arms out to the side and screamed as he pushed more than he knew he had and his features started to change. Anna poked her head out from behind Trunks' shoulder and managed to watch along with the boys as Gohan buffed up. His arms popped out at the same time almost doubling in size. His legs and body followed as every muscle grew and his hair kept extending until it was down to his waist and then some. His purple gi extended and was close to ripping as Gohan continued to scream. His hair stopped growing and the massive power started to stabilize, the ground slowly stopped shaking although the land right below Gohan was annihilated.

The huge glow started to decrease and decrease until it was almost gone but for a small tint around Gohan making him look radioactive. Trunks started flying over and his pupils moved in cautiously.

"Hey guys!" they turned around and saw Dreeve and Videl flying over. There was a little girl on Videl's back and the other two students recognized Pan from the times they'd visit Mt. Pau. Earlier that month Pan had turned three and one of the first things they tried to teach her was controlling her energy and although she was close, she wasn't able to fly yet. Her parents' goal was to have her up in the air by the end of one month and they were hoping to complete that goal but for now, Videl would still have to carry her daughter with her. "What happened, the shaking stopped is Gohan okay?"

Videl flew past the kids and over to where Trunks was floating in front of Gohan. The man was moving his hands and staring at them as he did, _I'm so powerful, too powerful,_ usually he could still do normal activities in his powered up forms but as he moved his hand down he felt a giant wind gust thrown from his fingers and slam into the ground creating a hole.

Strax, Anna, and Dreeve all dropped their jaws and opened their eyes wide as they saw the monster hole created by such a small movement. They hesitated but moved over with the others to get closer to Gohan.

He didn't want to drop out of his newly acquired state just yet but was trying to lower his power so he could interact with his friends and family without hurting them. The glow around him began to fade further and he breathed deeply to calm himself down. It wasn't neccessarily painful transforming, but it was not pleasant either, especially when your body changes shape halfway through.

"Honey, Gohan, are you okay?" Videl asked as she stared at the hunk in front of her. Gohan was a large man usually although he sometimes tried to hide it under baggy clothes. When he transformed it became impossible for him to hide his masculine features, but now, he was huge. Although he didn't get taller, he was broader, bigger, and sexier than she'd ever seen him. "It's still you in there right?"

The half-Saiyan looked up at her with a straight face, then at Trunks, and then he lifted his hand. He moved it slowly up to his face and patted the spot right above his eyes. His eyes widened and the other two in front of him backed up a little with confused looks on their face. The kids were now pretty close to Gohan as well and the man took his other hand and felt above his other eye but now his mouth opened too. "Where are my eyebrows?" Gohan asked, _they must have burned off in the transformation._

"Hahaha," Trunks started laughing. Gohan shot him a dirty look that in his normal forms was enough to make the boy stop but as a Super Saiyan 3, made Trunks quickly regain his composure. "What I meant to say," he chuckled and tried to contain himself from Gohan's reaction, "is that when Gotenks transformed that's the first thing we said."

The three kids behind them sweatdropped as the adults started laughing. Strax turned to Dreeve, "Gotenks?" The other boy shrugged and thought, _why'd he say one person's name and then say 'we?'_

"Daddy?" Pan said trying her hardest to do the technique her parents kept trying to teach her. She lifted slightly off her mothers back and moved a couple of feet to close the gap between her parents but didn't make it and started falling only to be caught by her dad. She could barely recognize him because of all the changes to his body but as she looked up from his arms and looked into his eyes she smiled, "It is you," she hugged the rock hard body of her dad and giggled.

Anna floated around the man a little and whispered a question to her brother, "What happened to his hair?"

Gohan had super hearing as did everyone there so Anna's whispered question was answered by the man himself. "This is what a Super Saiyan 3 looks like."

Before anyone could speak Trunks looked Gohan in the eyes very seriously, "How did you do it?" He was one of the only two people in the world that Gohan told his problem to. He knew the man was trying to accomplish this for years, and without warning it just happened.

"Now that I think about it, it was simple from the start," Gohan had his mouth opened but he stopped speaking and remembered his father's words. _'You need to figure it out on your own... It's not my place to tell you.'_ "Sorry Trunks," the man had a downcast look, "you're going to have to figure it out on your own." The purple haired boy looked confusedly at Gohan, it seemed like a moment before, Gohan was going to tell him.

"Huh, why not," Gohan tried to avoid his glare. It sounded to both of them like Gohan just didn't want Trunks to become as powerful as him.

"It's, it's just not my place to tell you," _God Dad I hope he's not too pissed._

"Well whatever," Trunks said and Gohan looked at him shocked. "If you told me how to do it then it would be like I hadn't really accomplished it myself. Don't worry though, I'll still catch up to you, just you wait."

Gohan started moving away after handing his daughter back to his wife and tried out some punches and kicks. He was still getting used to his new body and everything seemed different although he was adjusting fast. The power he emitted was more controlled and didn't destroy everything when he kicked downwards. Gohan tried forming a ki ball and quickly realized he didn't need to put as much strength into forming it as he thought. A massive ball appeared in his hand and he was about to throw it when he froze, _no way,_ he tossed the ball high up into the atmosphere and let it explode with an amazed look on his face. The yellow ball exploded sending shockwaves rippling around the sky and the others stared at it in awe.

One of them wasn't looking at the sky like the attack was awesome, one of them had an angry look on his face. The seven year old boy looked at his own hands and tried to form a ki ball with as much strength as he could muster. _He didn't even look like he was trying, that was child's play for him and I can't get a fraction of that._ A blue ball of light appeared in his hands and was getting bigger and bigger.

"Strax? What are you..." Anna jumped as the ball grew twice in size and her brother was staring angrily at the fading explosion high in the sky.

The adults turned around to face the little boy with his teeth bared as he grew the ball more and more. Trunks looked like he was going to tell his student to stop, this was Gohan's big moment but the older Saiyan appeared next to his friend with a hand raised. The gesture said, 'Let's see how this plays out,' Strax's blonde hair, that was now just below his shoulders, started blowing up as the white aura around him flared.

_This is ridiculous, I get stronger and stronger every day but he's an alien. How can I compete with that?!_ He lifted his hands above his head so that the tips of his middle fingers were touching and the ball rested above it growing more. Suddenly Gohan and Trunks flinched as the ball grew again and a small flare of blue light shot out of the ball. Gohan lowered his hand and Trunks called over, "Strax that's enough."

"No! I can make it bigger!" the boy pushed harder but his energy was getting out of control and shooting out of the ball. Dreeve had backed up pretty far and saw one of the lights shoot down past them and whip across the ground leaving a line in the rocks below. "Haaaa!" Trunks' pupil shot the now fifteen foot diameter ball straight up into the sky and blew it up after a few seconds of it shooting away.

Videl looked up amazed, she'd never put that much strength into a blast before. She turned her head to the panting little boy whose aura was still flaring and staring at his explosion. Her reaction was of amazement and surprise that the boy was that strong but when she saw his face she backed up a little.

He stared at his explosion and the ripple it had as it spread and grew furious, _At my most powerful I can't even get close!_ "Ahhh!" he started shooting ki ball after ki ball up into his explosion and yelling as he did it.

"Strax, Strax look at what you're doing," Trunks floated in front of him with his arms crossed and Strax angrily looked at his master. The teenager wasn't looking at him though and was looking straight past at the kids behind him. The boy turned around and saw the dark haired kid standing in front of his little sister as she used one hand to cover her other arm.

The boy calmed down and inched towards them. Dreeve figured she was out of danger and lowered his guard in front of Anna. Strax couldn't stop staring at his sister's arm, underneath her right hand he saw some red dripping down. "No, Strax, it's really nothing, really," the six year old tried to turn but Strax grabbed her by the arm and moved it away. He gasped and dropped the arm he was holding as he shook, "It's my fault really," Anna laughed trying to make the huge gash on her arm seem like nothing, ignoring the pain she actually felt. As he was creating the first attack, one of the streams of light shot out and sliced across her arm. That's when Dreeve pulled her back and stood in front of her.

The boy was shaking and before anyone could say anything else he shot off into the distance leaving a trail of white across the night sky.

"Shouldn't you go after him?" Videl turned to Trunks angrily glaring at the boy.

"No, I'm going to let him think, he's just having a hard time." Trunks looked back at Gohan and then at the rest of them, "The rest of you should go home."

"But I wanna stay with Daddy," Pan whined.

"Come on honey, let's let the boys have their fun, Dreeve," she turned over to the boy, "you come too."

"No," he responded, "I want to see what Gohan can really do."

Anna stood firm too, "Yeah I want to watch too."

Trunks was about to argue but Gohan spoke, "Sure, you guys can watch, just remember," his chiseled face looked sharply at them, "stay far enough back that you don't get caught in our explosions." _I won't be able to train normally in the form. Just staying in it right now is an enormous drain on my body. Transforming takes up so much energy but there's no way I'd be able to do what I did in the Cell Games where I stayed a Super Saiyan for a long time. I doubt I can stay in this form for more than an hour the way I am right now._

"So Gohan," the purple haired boy suddenly turned his hair gold and then it started flowing as lightning shot out of his body. "You ready for a spar in your new and improved, _eyebrowless_ body?" he chuckled and then heard Gohan's voice behind him.

"I don't know, are _you_ ready to eat dirt?" Trunks started turning around but before he could he was smashed straight into the floor way below him. The seventeen year old spat on the ground getting some disgusting Earth particles out of his mouth. He powered up fully in his state making the ground around him shake and knocking the two spectators a half a mile away onto their butts.

The man started moving his hands in a bunch of crazy motions that Anna had only seen him use once or twice before and Dreeve was trying to memorize as he did it. Finally he shouted, "Take," Gohan vanished from the air and appeared in front of Trunks as the boy put his hands in the final position with his thumbs and index fingers touching creating a diamond shape. "THIS!" A yellow ball appeared at the front of his hands and slammed straight into the man who appeared right in front of him.

Trunks was panting as he looked through the dust cloud that had risen but he wasn't a novice. He didn't shout victory because he could still sense Gohan's presence. As the smoke cleared, Dreeve and Anna dropped their jaws that such an amazing attack only pushed Gohan back a couple of feet. The Son boy had seen it coming right before the yellow ball was released and crossed his arms in time to block. When he was hit he was more than surprised that he was only knocked back a little; Trunks had used that move multiple times in their spars and when it hit at full power, it finished him half the time.

Gohan shot forward with incredible speed and held a palm out in front of his friend's face. "You lose," he smashed his palm forward and knocked Trunks off his feet and into the ground where he dragged a trench a half a mile long. Gohan had started to pant and he knew the strain on his body from this intense state was becoming a burden so he powered down. Dropping to his base form he popped a squat on the dirt and sighed.

Trunks was flying back over but when he saw his friend sitting down, his hopes to continue their match were squandered. He dropped out of his Super Saiyan 2 form and stood next to his friend as the students were flying over too. "That was... more of an increase than I thought," Trunks commented with a grin on his face hiding the fact that he'd thought he was getting so close and now Gohan had leapt forward again. _Doesn't matter, I'll keep going, once I'm a Super Saiyan 3 it'll only be a matter of time before I surpass him._

"Yeah," to Gohan it wasn't as much of an increase as it was to Trunks because the boy had rarely seen his Mystic form and hadn't fought against him when he was at it. It was vastly superior to Super Saiyan 2, and the jump from Mystic was still impressive but Gohan knew his father was a Super Saiyan 3 and he was defeated by the aliens. There was no time for celebration.

"Wow, that was amazing," Anna applauded as she got near. She turned to her Master and flushed nervously, "I mean, you both were." She didn't want to offend her master.

"Yeah, but you know what that means," Anna turned to her slightly older friend. "We've got to train twice as hard if we want to get to their level."

The little girl looked off in the distance where the ki she memorized as her brother's was fluctuating. _He doesn't think we will be able to get to their level, he thinks we're just weaklings,_ her arm hurt and she started moving her hand to it but she stopped. The look on her brother's face when he realized he'd cut her, it was horrifying. Only once during their training had Strax injured her badly and she was crying about her broken fingers but she stopped when she saw Trunks holding on to Strax's arms. It was the first time she'd been given a sensu bean and their master had only done it to calm Strax down. She didn't let him know that she did, but she knew that one of his main, if not his sole most important reason for getting stronger was to protect her and when his own hands were the weapons that made her cry he flipped. Earlier tonight when he saw the blood, _Strax don't blame yourself, I got too close to you, I should've known to stay back._ She knew it would be no use telling him these things but she wanted to anyway, anything for her brother's sake.

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Rowan sat without any emotions showing as all his advisors shouted at him at once. He had a commanding figure and essence about him but he hid it behind his casual attitude towards his underlings. The red woman across the table from his had stood up and was slamming her hands down on the platform over and over to emphasize her point. "I can't believe I'm saying it but I agree with Prill, we have to attack now!"

Trussir was directly on his left and the shorter blue creature was trying to sway opinion of the rest of the meeting's members, which consisted of about twenty platoon leaders along with the officers, towards waiting a little longer. "Do we really want to rush in there without a plan? Will we be as foolish the third, no fourth time around?"

The 'second' admiral was contradicting his leader on that point, "We are more prepared than we were before, we don't even need the Dreadnaught. Cargo ships, and single pods will be enough to transport this fleet to Earth and annihilate it. It will be our crowning achievement to have the other fleets arrive and the planet already be conquered. The rest of them looked at Prill with a dirty look.

_Of course you'll take all the credit._

_You mean 'your' crowning achievement._

Rowan stood up and the noise settled. His eight foot tall green form made people afraid to just be in his presence if they didn't know him. Others that were aware of what he could do were even more scared. The man looked around at the bloodthirsty thirst for revenge from his protegé, the pleading look from his head admiral, and the smug look of a man who seemed only in it for himself. "I'm disappointed in you Syria," the red girl slowly sat back down at the harsh words from her mentor. Sure, she was skilled when he took her out of the training planet, but since then she'd multiplied in strength and it was thanks to her teacher. "Half-assing it will get us all killed. The cargo ships don't have the same shielding as the Dreadnaught, they aren't even as strong as a T-45 and we saw how Zeke's ship, I mean Second Admiral Prill's ship was destroyed."

"They won't know we're coming though, once we enter the atmosphere and land on the planet we won't need shields for our ships anymore." Prill said confidently.

"R'yuk'y, Zeke," the commander paused as he made eye contact with each person individually, "K'luk'fruk, all the others who were slaughtered by these Earthlings. Will we make the same mistakes again and underestimate our enemies?"

"No," some of the squad leaders standing around the table responded.

The muscular, tall, green man looked sternly across the table at his apprentice, "Will we charge in blindly with the sole purpose of killing these Earthlings?"

"No," she answered him along with some of the other aliens behind her.

"Are we going to allow our fleet to be the laughing stock of the universe when the other fleets arrive?" he turned to his head admiral who just wanted to wait for help.

"No," the blue man stood up and slammed his fist on the table shaking it. "No we will not," Trussir wasn't small but standing just over five feet tall right next to his eight foot commander made him look tiny.

"We _are_ going to fix our ship," he emphasized as he turned to the pale humanoid alien on his right. "We will work on it constantly with all the supplies we were brought. And then we'll head for Earth before the other two fleets arrive," Prill was angered that they weren't leaving immediately but Rowan's words stuck. "This is our fight, and we will finish it."

_That man is going to be a nuisance in the future, everyone here is shouting in agreement and cheering him on. Damn his speech abilities, but no matter. It is better to be safe anyway, the Dreadnaught will not be taken by surprise a second time._ Prill chuckled to himself as the men around the table chanted, "For the first fleet! Yeah! For Honor! Yeah! For the pride of the IDE! YEAH!" _Fools, the honor will be all mine, then the king will put me right into his royal guard._

Rowan took Syria to the side as the men were all still shouting, "Syria..."

"I apologize Rowan, I outspoke my bounds..." she interrupted but he quieted her by hitting her upside the head.

"That's not why I called you over, and don't ever censor what you're thinking in those meetings. It would be foolish to only say what you think I want to hear. We will be leaving for Earth, but not as soon as the men believe." She looked at her commanding officer confusedly. "I said we will be leaving before the other fleets arrive which seems like a short time, however, the fourth fleet is taking longer than they thought to complete their last mission in the 23rd sector. Also, during the second fleet's return trip, a saboteur from a conquered planet snuck aboard and wreaked havoc on the engine deck before he was promptly executed. What's more is he managed to assassinate the head engineers the night before while they were sleeping and the engine wasn't fixed in time."

"What does that mean?" the woman asked impatiently.

Rowan sighed, it was hard to remember that such a powerful being was only seventeen years old when they crashed on this planet. "The ship's engines were fried and crashed on a nearby IDE controlled planet. It had a small base on it and they are working at the moment to get the Eviscerator back to running speed. The second fleet was on its way back to WZU8 to pick up Prince Kass and his royal escort so even when they get back up and running we'll still have a good lead in front of them."

"So how long is soon?" Syria questioned nervously. She'd spent the last close to four years sitting on a desert planet filled with men she didn't want constantly staring at her and the only man she did like completely ignoring her unless it came to training or business.

"We're close to finishing repairs on the Dreadnaught, if all goes well, we can invade within the month. I'd say the latest would be when we hear another fleet is coming, then no matter where we are on the repairs, we'll be going in full force. The ship can fly, I believe, but we are prepping the shields to be prepared for anything, it's not going down again." He started walking away but turned back and looked at her, "Are you okay?"

"Pssh, yeah," she turned away from him, "I'm just pissed we're not leaving now." She stormed away angrily but she had a smile on her face as she did.

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Strax stood atop a mountain and stared off into the distance looking at the beauty of the countryside. He could feel a fight going on far behind him but didn't turn around to see the glow that he knew was in the sky. _How could I have done that, how could I have been so foolish,_ he looked down at his shaking hands and then stopped them. _No, I can't let this get to me. Anna's going to be out there fighting too, she's going to get a lot worse than a cut on her arm. I've been going too easy on her because I'm worried she's going to get hurt. But maybe that's what'll make her unprepared for it when it actually happens._ He clenched his fists, he didn't want to hurt his sister but it made so much sense that by doing so he was actually helping her.

As he looked over the forest stretching beneath him and the mountain that seemed so far away but he knew he could fly to from his mountaintop in a minute. It was hard to believe that just two years before he'd been scouring a city for food to find for him and his sister. Now they lived in a massive mansion-like house, owned by one of the richest families in the world, eating good meals three times a day. He thought about how weak he was when he met Trunks and how he wanted to do something important with his life. Well know, he couldn't think of anything he'd rather be doing but it all seemed futile.

Strax wasn't stupid, Bulma made sure of that, but he knew the difference in power between him and his master when Trunks was in his normal form. As his second transformed state, they weren't even close to being in even the same league but his purple haired master was beaten so severely by that alien who they assured him wasn't even the strongest enemy they'd be facing.

_I know I'm getting stronger, it's just not enough. There's just not enough time, God said they'd be on their way soon. Will my help even be needed?_ "No!" he shouted, there was no one around but he didn't care anyway, "We didn't work this hard for nothing!" he shot into the air, _there's no time to be sitting around doing nothing, time for training._

sc/tl

"Come on Gohan, let's go," Dreeve was standing outside the Son house waiting for his master. He told his student a few weeks back that they would be going to Kame House for a visit soon and Dreeve had finally convinced him to go after asking constantly during their training.

"Alright, alright," he stepped out his front door and shot up into the air with Dreeve following close behind. The eight year old had his black hair not spiked for once and it rested on his head going back normally. Gohan sniffed as they were flying and turned towards his pupil, "Old Spice?" Dreeve almost fell out of the sky.

"I d-don't know what you're talking about?" Gohan laughed as they continued going and made it over the ocean. His pupil hadn't seen Marron in over half a year but he was excited. Gohan was feeling equally nervous as his student but for a different reason. Trying to change the subject Dreeve said, "I wonder what 18's new pupil is like."

The man flying next to him sighed, "Dreeve, there's something..."

"Look there it is," the boy shot forwards twice as fast and Gohan groaned. Dreeve landed on top of Kame House where Master Roshi was sitting. "Hello Master Roshi," he bowed and sat next to the old man and they both started staring at the sand.

Gohan landed and stood next to the two of them while watching the front lawn of the house where the three women were having their battle. Marron was now nine years old and was fighting with Umara for a change as they tried to take on 18 while the blonde woman was only allowed to use her left hand.

The action was actually pretty impressive, each punch and kick thrown by Marron seemed stronger than the previous and 18 was struggling to keep up her blocks while throwing her own punches occasionally. Gohan was looking around and then searched out the ki and looked up into the sky. There he saw a little girl with dark hair in a ponytail behind her charging two medium sized ki blasts.

"Whoa, how long has she been here?" Dreeve asked looking at the ki balls.

"Only eight months, her progress in remarkable. Although I can't say I'm surprised considering her resolve," Master Roshi broke off and kept watching the main fight as Umara hovered high above with the energy in her hands.

She didn't like taking orders from the girl who was only a couple months older than her but Marron's plan was fantastic. She was an amazing strategist. Umara waited and waited and finally she found it, _"wait until the perfect moment when she's become completely distracted by me and then throw the first ball."_ Umara did as she was told and chucked the blue ball of light down at 18.

Marron had been knocked back but started flying back in when 18 saw the light coming down. _You're going to have to try harder than that,_ she knocked the ball away from the island and already turned back to dodge the kick from Marron that was being sent her way. However, Marron had stopped her charge and was creating a huge amount of energy in between her hands as she twisted them and pulled them to her side, "Kame."

18 looked at her daughter slightly disappointed and was about to shoot forward and kick her to the ground when she saw another ball of blue light. She'd been distracted thinking that Umara's ki ball was the diversion and focused back on her daughter afterwords but it seemed like Marron was the real distraction. She was too late to turn around and the blue ball of light hit her straight in the chest.

"Whoa," Gohan said, amazed that girl could produce so much energy after such a small time training. It still wasn't nearly enough to phase 18 more than just knocking her down a couple feet.

_Great idea, only you two should've switched places. Marron might've actually knocked me to the beach._ 18 looked up and started flying up towards the other girl when she heard it and her mouth opened wide in surprise.

"HAAAA!" 18 looked back over and a blue beam of light left her daughter's hands and was rushing towards her too fast to dodge. She put out her hands and felt the heat of the blast pushing against her. As she held it in place, Marron put more energy into it and Umara shot down ki blast after ki blast into 18's back.

_It's like when I killed Cell,_ Gohan thought back to all his friends trying to distract the monster and make it lose its focus as he attacked with the main blast.

As another ball was heading down, 18 slapped up with one hand and knocked the ball directly back to an unsuspecting Umara who crashed down to the ground below. However, 18 had lost her concentration and was not able to hold off her daughter's beam with only one hand. The Kamehameha wave knocked her arm aside and slammed into her full force pushing her with the beam over the ocean and into the horizon.

The island was silent for a moment as the blonde girl floated there in mid-air not believing what she had just done. _I did it? I did it!_ She smiled, she'd never defeated her mom before, and 18 even had to use both of her hands at the end.

Breaking the silence was applause and a whistle, "Yeah woohoo, great job," Marron looked down. She was too distracted by the fight and didn't see him approach but now she saw the boy jumping up and down on the roof of her house cheering for her victory. It felt good being appreciated after all her hard work.

She flew down and landed on the roof as Umara was getting to her feet after digging herself out of the sand. "Uncle Gohan!" Marron jumped after landing and Gohan caught her in his arms.

"Great to see you Marron, that was amazing," he put her down and she smiled.

Turning to the other boy she said, "Hi Dreeve."

He smiled and responded, "Hey Marron," _where's my hug?_ He looked disappointed but she seemed to know what he was thinking and pulled him in for a hug too. Gohan laughed as he saw the boy's face turn into a tomato.

"Haha, it's great to see you again," she pulled back and was about to ask how they've been when they all heard a voice from the beach below.

"Did you say, _'Gohan?'_" Marron and Gohan gulped and Dreeve looked back and forth between them all with a confused look on his face. The blonde girl was told by her mother what would happen when Umara finally met Gohan or Trunks and she wasn't looking forward to that day. She had hoped it would be Trunks because he's more arrogant and a get over it type of guy, when she looked at her godfather she saw a nice caring man.

Umara was pretty beat after her spar but a new surge of energy was forming inside of her. "You," she pointed at the man, "what are you doing here?!" she raised her voice and started hovering up to the roof. Gohan jumped to the side of the building and landed on the lawn, he didn't know what this girl was going to do but there were enough patched up holes in Kame House already.

"Listen," he said holding up his hands in front of him as she turned from her location and started making her way over to where Gohan was standing.

"What?" she said too fast for him to continue. "Do you know what you did to me?"

"Umara stop," Marron called out from the roof but Roshi grabbed her by the arm. She wasn't supposed to interfere. Dreeve stood there with a confused look on his face, _Do they know each other? Is this why Gohan didn't want to come?_

"Yes, but..." Gohan was cut off again.

"No, you took away my life," he looked like he was going to speak but she wouldn't let him as she flew closer and closer. "What, you thought everyone else was more important? That we weren't worth saving? Did you think we'd be okay, that we could wait a little longer and we'd still be fine?"

"I..."

"What?! What could you possibly have to say to me?" Dreeve was beyond confused at this point but he watched in silent awe.

Gohan lifted his head to the girl and she saw his eyes. The dark, coal colored eyes of the Saiyan stared at her and she could see all the sorrow, the regret hidden inside them coming out. He opened his mouth and she dropped her jaw as he spoke, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. If only, if I had just been, it's all my fault. I wasn't fast enough," he was looking away from her now and was getting worked up. The day of the mini invasion Gohan had thought he was prepared. They weren't attacking in full force, he was going to pick them apart one by one as they entered the atmosphere. _I could have saved everyone._

When he saw the first pod enter the space though, he fired a large ki blast at it and it exploded, but it didn't kill the occupant. He'd completely misjudged how much power he'd need to put into the blast and the alien powered up fast. Through the smoke a purple monster that looked like a dragon flew out and before he could transform, it smashed him down out of the sky and into the Earth below. That was his biggest mistake, and it stopped him from moving on fast enough to prevent the other landings. "It's, it's all my fault. I should have stopped them, if I was just a little faster, or stronger." He turned back to the girl in front of him who had tears resting on the bottom of her eyelids but she wouldn't let them fall. "I'm so sorry," he grabbed her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes, "I'm so sorry," he repeated.

Umara backed up, she'd held so much rage for this kind, sad man for so long that she didn't know what to do with it all. The energy that had grown inside her was still there but she had nowhere to direct it she spun around but there was nothing she could do. Gohan put his hand back on his shoulder and she snapped, "NO!" she slapped it away and backed up. "How can you be, you," she pictured him as a big mean brute who just happened to be really strong, "It's your fault my parents are dead, it's your fault," she was shouting it mainly to convince herself who she'd told that to a hundred times a day for almost a year.

At that moment, 18 was flying back to her island with a proud grin on her face. That triple deception was something spectacular and they pulled it off amazingly. She didn't even see it coming and she was trying to hide her own anger at herself for allowing that maneuver to get past her. She saw Umara on the ground, well heard her to be exact and started swooping down but when she saw Gohan standing in front of her she sped up.

"It's your fault, it's your fault," 18 flew out of the sky and smacked Umara in the side of the head and she flew onto the beach, skidding on the sand.

"Marron get Umara inside, now," she ordered and Marron turned to Dreeve with a look that said, 'sorry, gotta go.' _What was that girl thinking,_ "Gohan, Gohan are you okay?" she asked him shaking him a little.

_'IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!'_ Gohan shook his head and gave 18 a little grin. "Sorry for not calling in advance," he never did before and it had never been a problem but he turned to the roof of the building, "Dreeve it's time to go."

He wanted to shout, 'but we just got here,' but after what he just witnessed he knew it was better that they get going. _Do I ask him about it? What..._ the old man sitting next to him tapped him in the leg and Dreeve turned to him. The bearded hermit just shook his head and Dreeve gulped, he got kind of an idea of why the girl was mad, but it couldn't be true, Gohan couldn't be the reason.

"Gohan, you don't have to leave, come on, stay a little," 18 smiled and brushed up against the boy but Gohan was somewhere else. His mind gone for the moment.

"Sorry 18, just remembered Videl said we had to be home soon, see ya later," he flashed her another fake smile and took off, Dreeve following behind. The boy looked back down at the house where Marron stuck her head out the window and waved. Dreeve lifted his arm to wave back but forgot about keeping his ki steady for the moment and plummeted twenty feet before regaining his composure and finishing the wave. At this point Marron was giggling and Dreeve thought he made himself look like and idiot so he turned back and started flying away faster, _Aw man I'm such a dope. She was laughing at me._

Marron was actually laughing because she thought he was pretty funny but there were bigger problems now. 18 had almost knocked Umara out but the girl she helped inside was now sitting up on the couch and rubbing her temple. She heard the door shut and moved towards her mom, "Wait, she didn't mean for, he apologized and she couldn't take it."

Umara was sitting there staring at her hands, how could that be the man responsible for her parents death. She couldn't hate the alien, because it was dead, she needed to point her anger at him.

"_She_ couldn't take it," 18 pushed her daughter to the side and said firmly, "Room now." Marron looked back at her friend and then rushed upstairs, it wasn't like she wouldn't be able to hear what was going on. Walls in Kame House were thin, even Master Roshi on the roof was listening to everything going on, on his island. Umara turned to face the woman who had just sent her flying a hundred feet with a sad face but 18 showed no sympathy, not that she was expecting any from the harsh lady.

"He just," she started.

"It's all your fault?" 18 asked angrily, "How could you say that to him?" in her eyes Gohan was the same little kid she knew since his personality had changed so little. The only difference was the body, and it was a big difference but she ignored it... most of the time.

"You don't know how I feel! What it's like having that man..."

"That man, is the reason we are all still alive. That man saved all of our lives," 18 retorted not liking the way she referred to her friend.

"Not all of our lives, he didn't save them. You don't know what I'm feeling. Having him be the way he is," 18 didn't give a shit. What she heard from up in the air was unacceptable from any child she was raising.

"How you're feeling?" she asked sarcastically. "I'm sorry your parents are dead, life sucks sometimes. Don't make it seem like you're the only one hurting."

_She doesn't know how it feels, none of them do,_ Umara wanted to punch a hole in the couch or the table or the wall or something but she just sat there staring angrily at 18. "I can't forgive him, it's all his..."

"Do NOT," she shouted, "finish that sentence." Umara opened her mouth wide, she hadn't seen 18 this angry since she tried to kill her, no not even then. This was the most furious she'd ever seen the woman. "It's anyone, _but_ Gohan's fault. How about Trunks, I know you blame him too but he was saving someone elses parents. It's unfair but they still have theirs and you don't. What about me?" she looked up at her master who was glaring at her, "You know what I did when they invaded? I sat on this island and waited it out. Where was I when your parents were killed? Why is the military, the government you're supposed to turn to, so weak that they can't protect their own people? Why were _you,_ she pointed at the girl and shoved her finger in her chest, so weak that you could do nothing to stop it?"

Umara was speechless, she sat there looking at her master and tried to get past her own thoughts about the man. It was her fault, the governments, her parents, everyone's fault, he just chose to save someone else instead. "It was them or someone else, do you know what it takes to make a decision like that. To know that you have the chance to go and save thirty people but knowing that if you, a thousand will die. What is he supposed to do in that scenario, what _can_ he do?" The black haired girl dropped her tension, she wasn't looking to punch anything anymore, she was just listening to the angry speech coming from her master. "Every one of the deaths they mention are lives that he could've saved, do you know how much that eats away at him. All the orphans, grieving family members, they all point to him with the blame and he takes all their blame and bottles it up. You might blame him for your parents' death but that's nothing to the blame he puts on himself every time the tv turns on.

"I know it must be hard for him, but that's not the same..." she started.

"As what? Losing your parents? He lost his dad, first person killed by these monsters," Umara looked shocked but 18 wasn't finished. "How about losing your little brother? Oh yeah that's right, you didn't have any siblings, he did. Now he's dead. What about your best friend? I'm sure that little girl is sitting at home playing tea party and having a normal life but not Gohan, his closest friends were all slaughtered in front of him. You can shift the blame to Trunks, but he lost his best friend too, watched helplessly as he was brutally murdered. He lost his dad as well." Umara thought of these people as monsters but they were hurting just like she was. "Okay, you can't blame them, it's obviously not their fault. What about me? I sat here watching my daughter who could more than protect herself at this point. She could have taken almost all of those invaders, but I sat by her side nonetheless and didn't even care that people all over were getting killed."

The black haired girl did blame her, that made sense, "Why?" she asked angrily.

"Because I'm not like them, I was created for evil, they showed me mercy. He showed me mercy," she looked sad for a second and Umara thought, _her husband? They never talk about him but when I brought it up they all got really upset, and created, what?_ "But he's dead now. They killed him too, and nobody's ever coming back."

_She lost someone, they lost someone, why is it so hard to stay angry at them?_ Umara looked away and the water was back in her eyes but she didn't want to start crying, "What am I supposed to do? Who can I hate?"

"Hate them," she seethed. Umara had never heard this tone of voice before but it was unsettling. "Hate them to your very core. Train harder, and harder than you ever have before so that you can teach them when they arrive," she stood up and extended her hand, "that they should regret ever hearing of the planet Earth."

Umara's face distorted as she pushed all her anger away from the others, moved it all towards one being, one idea. The aliens would die by her hands, _I'll kill them all!_ Umara grabbed her master's hand and was pulled up, "Those aliens are going to get what's coming to them.

sc/tl

"Ancestor please, I beg of you, we need to warn them. This time they won't be able to hold them back."

"Enough, we must not interfere with the happenings of the mortal world," the old kai said as they looked into the crystal ball. The giant Dreadnaught was lifting slowly out of its crater that it created when crashing on the planet.

"We've done it before," Kibitoshin argued. The Supreme Kai was close friends with many of the Earthlings and didn't want them to die.

"That's because you," the old blue man pointed his finger at the younger kai, "failed to finish Majin Buu. This is unrelated to the kais, you never interfered with Frieza's empire, you won't interfere with this one. We can't let our feelings cloud our judgement," _Oh Gohan, please make it out of this one okay._ Supreme Kai looked at his ancestor who was frowning and knew exactly how the man felt. This was a force of almost a thousand warriors, a handful of which could make the universe shake by their presence.

"Please, just this once, we just have to let them know it's coming," the old kai grumbled something about Kais not being as responsible as they once were.

"I will not condone this action, however," Shin looked up hopefully. "For the next three minutes I will be staring off that way at the landscape, whatever you do, do not make contact with the Earthlings and warn them of their imminent invasion."

Kibitoshin looked disappointed, "Don't you get it dummy, I was trying to hint that you should let them know."

"Huh, but you said," Supreme Kai was confused and the old kai shook his head.

"Who cares anyway, just call them," Shin nodded, smiled and closed his eyes.

**Gohan, Trunks, Tien, can you hear me? **Around the planet the three men looked up from what they were doing, they hadn't heard that voice in a long time.

**Supreme Kai?** Gohan asked and Videl and Dreeve stopped sparring and turned to him.

** They're coming.**

** We know we've been training nonstop for a few years, it would have been good to hear from you sooner though.** Trunks said out loud with a little bit of a pissed off tone. Strax and Anna stopped eating and looked across the table at their master like he was crazy.

**No you don't understand,** the kai looked back into the crystal ball and saw the rest of the fleet lift off the planet in their smaller ships, most only carrying three or four people max. A lot of the ships were bigger versions of Saiyan pods but they'd managed to salvage some others and steal from the old PTO base some bigger ships.

**What do you mean Supreme Kai?** Tien asked from the Lookout.

**THEY'RE COMING RIGHT NOW!** He ended the transmission and looked at his elder to make sure he did a good job. The old kai just put his head in his hands, that was such a loud scream, not to mention panicky.

sc

On Earth, Trunks stood up so fast he knocked over the table and its contents spilled all over the floor. The two kids looked at each other nervously, first he was talking to himself, then he did the unimaginable and wasted food. Bulma burst into the kitchen and started yelling, "Trunks Briefs, what do you think you're doing?!"

"They're coming," he turned to the kids, "it's time to go."

"What?" Bulma asked putting her hands up to her mouth.

"It's too soon, we're not ready," Anna said looking at her own hands. She didn't feel she was strong enough to stop them.

"It doesn't matter, this is it." Bulma didn't know but he coninued, "Supreme Kai," he turned to his mom and those words were enough to explain.

"Thank you God for your help." the two kids were confused, they thought they'd already met God and his name was Tien.

"Let's go guys, it's time for all your work to finally pay off. Follow me," he shot up into the air and out the open window followed by his students.

"You better all be back okay or there'll be hell to pay," Bulma shouted out the window. She whispered once they were out of earshot, "Keep them safe Trunks."

sc

Tien and Master Roshi finished the conversation they had telekinetically and the old man ran outside. Marron was out cold on the floor and Umara was pounding as fast as she could trying to get a hit in on the woman who was dodging at the speed of sound. "Stop," he shouted and the two women froze, he never said anything when they were training before, no matter how rough it got. "Give the girls sensu beans, now."

18 floated down, "Don't tell me how to train my students old man."

"They're coming," 18 reached into her pocket and tossed the girl who'd just landed a bean. Umara had never taken one before but she'd heard about it and popped it in her mouth. 18 force fed her unconscious daughter and Marron sprung up.

"Was that a sensu?" she asked and her mother nodded.

"It's time," Umara turned to her. She hadn't heard what the Turtle Hermit said before, "We're leaving to meet up with the others."

"Are they really coming? This is the real thing this time?" Marron asked remembering how the year before her mother had said it was only a minor force and that Gohan and Trunks could handle it. Every day she was reminded that they couldn't do it alone when she would spar with her new friend.

Umara lifted off already and turned back, "What are you waiting for?" 18 shot after her and Marron was right on her tail. The girl could sense where the other powers were headed and was leading the way but 18 was faster and quickly took the lead and continued shooting faster and faster into the distance. Marron passed her as well and kept flying without turning back, Umara wouldn't fall behind, not this time.

sc

Gohan and Dreeve were shooting into the distance. The boy took one look back and then turned to his master, "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course, there's no way I'd be doing it if I didn't think she could handle it." From behind them, two powers shot out from their house and flew double time to catch up with the others. Dreeve had been angry when he saw how easy and simple Pan made every little thing look that had taken him days to accomplish. Gohan explained it to him once that Saiyans naturally were warriors, and Pan was born to one of the strongest ever, she was going to be naturally strong. Then, about five months ago, Pan had defeated him in a spar and he got angry but accepted his defeat and stopped it at that. He wouldn't let her keep growing exponentially more than him and he hadn't let her beat him again the rest of the time no matter how much she improved.

Flying behind him now were Videl and Pan who had a serious look on her face that still seemed adorable when you looked at her. The almost four year old girl flew next to Dreeve and whispered so her parents wouldn't hear her, "I'm scared big brother." That was also something he had to get used to from Pan, she didn't know they weren't actually related but he didn't feel a need to tell her that anyway. For all extensive purposes she was his sister, and he was going to protect her, though he doubted he needed to when Videl was going to be staying by her side the entire time.

"I know Panny, I am too," he hid it well as he flew straight towards the Lookout but if the enemy were really as strong as Gohan said, then he just hoped to God that they were all going to be okay.

Arriving at the Lookout, Dreeve saw Trunks' group landing at the same time. Already there was 18 and the two girls. They hadn't seen them since the visit six weeks ago but they'd all trained a lot since then. Tien was standing in the middle of the Lookout with Chaozu floating next to his shoulder.

As all the others walked in slowly, Umara made her way over and walked next to Gohan. They walked towards the center with everyone else remaining silent and she whispered to him, "I'm sorry. I don't blame you. It's not your fault." She meant it, she'd asked 18 multiple times to be allowed to go find him and apologize but the woman wouldn't let her take that time where she could be training.

Gohan dropped his jaw and stopped but the girl kept walking and went and caught up with Marron. _Thank God, _he smiled wide and a weight was lifted off his heart.

They all moved together and were huddled around the Guardian of the Earth. "Supreme Kai just told us, we're about to be invaded. Bulma and Mr. Satan are getting the word out as we speak. All around the world people will be hiding themselves in shelters, but the main priority must be to save as many people as possible. No shelter is impregnable when placed against these monsters, they'll kill us all, unless we stop it. There's no one else to turn to, this is it. I know we all wish Goku was here, or Vegeta, Krillin, Piccolo, we wish Goten and all the others were still here to help us but we're all there is."

"We've trained hard these last few years, there's no limit to what we can do, but when these aliens come it could all be for nothing if you forget your training." Trunks looked around at the children around him. The majority of the fighters gathered were nine years old or younger.

"Ah," Dreeve blurted out but at the same time all the others felt it. He was just shocked by how strong the power felt. Anna slowly realized what they were all doing staring up at the sky and her heart skipped a beat as the massive power was felt. She started to tremble but felt a hand in hers and turned to see the older blonde girl giving her a warm smile. _That's right, I'm not alone, we can do this._

"Alright guys, be ready to shoot off to different areas, there's no telling where they're going to attack."

sc

"Are you sure?" Rowan asked his Head Admiral. Trussir rubbed the burnt spot around his eye where the scouter he had on just exploded. He'd picked up several powers that were higher than their average soldier and then suddenly one of the powers tripled and his eyepiece exploded.

The blue creature turned to his boss, "That is definitely where they were," Rowan smiled. When a man that powerful smiles like he did it sent chills down everyone on the bridge's spines.

"Prepare the Dread laser." Trussir almost fell out of his chair.

_Is he serious, we haven't even started fighting yet,_ "Charge the Dread laser!" he shouted in case any of his men were having similar doubts.

"Sir, we're looking for a fight, don't kill them all before we even get there," he heard over the speakers and muted the one to the lead F-66 that had Syria leading it.

"I must admit Rowan," the green man turned to Prill who was in a golden tunic studded with gems that must've cost a fortune but that was only for show, inside the gold plating was some of the hardest material in the universe given to special elites to protect them. "Using such an attack this early in an invasion is unprecedented."

"You're mistaken," Rowan said and the King's official looked at him oddly, "This invasion's been going on for five years."

"Dread laser charged," a lackey called over to the commander.

"Fire."

sc

"They're right above us, what are they doing?" Strax wanted them to come down already.

Umara shouted at the sky, "Are you afraid, get down here right now!" they could see the giant spaceship hovering above the planet and to them it seemed much closer than to the rest of the world because they were already kind of above the Earth on the Lookout.

"Maybe they're going to send down their leaders and negotiate our surrender," Trunks scoffed. "If they do they have another thing coming."

The bottom of the ship spread out so that their were branches in lots of different directions, but right in the center of all the tentacle looking extremities, was a circle. This circle had a little dot right in the center of it and some of them squinted. "What is that?" Anna asked nervously as the dot began to grow.

Gohan looked up and the ship was centered directly above the Lookout. _They can't..._ "Everyone off the..." before he finished his sentence the little dot doubled, then quadrupled, and exponentially grew twenty times in the next second.

"RUN!" 18 shouted. The more experienced fighters were up in the air and scattering instantly but the others who had never, or only been in one real fight hesitated. Strax lifted into the air and grabbed his sister's hand as he did dragging her along with him as she stared up at the sky in disbelief. The giant light started flying down in a huge beam that continuously ran from their ship down to the center right of the Lookout where it slammed straight through and shattered half of the palace, the ship was a little off center but the beam was amazingly powerful. It didn't even stop as it went straight through the buildings and then the platform. The light travelled down and the fighters all around the sky looked down in terror as the beam surrounded all of Korin's tower and slammed straight down to the ground far below.

Korin's temple exploded when it was hit and they felt the ki's of all the people in the village at the bottom of the tower extinguish. "Korin, Yajirobe!" Chaozu shouted down. The huge blue beam of light started getting thinner and thinner and then dissolved leaving a gaping hole in the planet below that they had no idea how far it went.

"Look," Trunks pointed and the others saw it.

"When did you learn how to fly?" Gohan shouted over.

"Everyone else was training, I could at least do that," the fat man was panting with the cat sitting on top of his back clinging on for dear life. In his hands underneath him as he flew away was a basket and he shouted, "I've got the sensu beans, I'm going to go guard them. Find me if you're hurt."

The kids looked at the fat man who seemed so noble to protect their life source with respect, while the older members of the group knew he was just being a coward.

"They're coming," Tien called out and everyone looked back up, it didn't seem like they were going to get a break anytime soon. Dozens of little ships were flying out of the atmosphere but they were all clumped together in a bunch, landing in one area a couple miles away from them. Gohan was going to blast them out of the air but he realized these were all the ships, they weren't scattering around the planet like last time.

Almost reading the people's there thoughts Tien tried to explain, "Last time they were coming to do recon on our planet. They needed to be sure they checked all around the Earth before reporting in, this time it was a real invasion, no need to separate all your troops when you know they'll get picked off by the incredibly strong fighters on the planet.

The Dreadnaught was staying in place in the atmosphere and Trunks was staring up at it in disdain, _My dad destroyed you._ It was hard seeing his father's struggle to keep them alive overcome, but it did save them for almost five years and that was enough in his book. One large ship was exiting the side of the Dreadnaught, a side project as most people worked on fixing it was repairing one of the T-45's. It wasn't at maximum power and the weaponry was fried but the shields were working and that was most important as Rowan lowered himself to the planet.

The group hovering in the sky watched as the circular ship landed in the same area as the other ships. "What are they doing? Why aren't they attacking us?" Strax asked his mentor.

"Maybe they think they got us with that blast?" Marron offered but it seemed unlikely.

"We know from experience that they can't sense our powers, and they don't have scouters like Frieza's men but then how did they find us in the first place?" Trunks asked.

"There was a PTO base on the planet they were stuck on, they probably took some scouters from them but remember, those things were fragile. All you have to do is raise your power and they'll explode.

"That's why..." Gohan nodded, the others were confused why he'd suddenly spiked his power for no reason but it probably saved the Lookout from being completely destroyed. Now it was floating awkwardly with its interior showing and rubble floating all around it.

Dreeve looked over in the direction they landed, _What are they waiting for?_

sc

"What are they waiting for!?" Syria shouted as her boss landed his ship in the quickly being set up base. Men were sprinting around and setting up defenses: towers, metal fences, lasers at the tops of the walls to prevent people from climbing over, the lasers went straight up in the air and extended for miles.

She was hoping they would attack before her men had time to set up camp because it would give her time to kill a few before her boss slaughters them all easily. Rowan stepped out of his ship when it landed half-expecting to enter a warzone but the place was empty except for their own ship.

"Reports," three soldiers appeared in front of him.

Disappointedly Syria groaned, "No sign of any resistance sir. Base defenses set up completely sir."

Another man announced, "In the landing process we've lost zero men, and zero ships." His job was the casualty report since his former red spiky boss was impaled by the commander for giving a bad report. He was glad his first report didn't get him killed in a fit of rage.

Trussir started speaking, "Sir, Zeke must've been too busy fighting with them to learn and report this," Rowan turned to his admiral. "The ships scanners show an abundance of usable resources for the Empire. Metallic elements surround the planet, it seems like the humans have learned how to change the raw forms into usable materials for building just like their spaceships showed us." The destroyed Capsule Corp. ships showed the aliens a lot about the Earth but not this much, "There is also an abundance of Carbon based life, lots of intelligent species, from the readings, this is a goldmine of a planet and an amazing prize for the IDE." Prill just 'happened' to be walking by at that minute and smirked, licking his lips with his snake-like tongue.

"Great work, all of you. Stage one of the invasion is complete. Get set for stage two." He headed back into his ship and looked down at one of his techs. "Is it ready?"

"Just finished," the man pressed a button and backed away from the chair. "Just hold that down and it will start recording."

"Wonderful," Rowan put his face right in front of the camera and started speaking. "People of planet Earth..."

sc

Bulma in the tv studio having left her house as soon as Trunks and the kids were gone. She'd easily convinced everyone to put her worldwide on television and was shouting at the camera, "Get in your homes, hide where you can. They're here, the aliens are here!" The tv in the corner of the room that was showing Bulma the footage that was being streamed around the world turned to static.

She stopped talking and they turned up the volume to the tv, "People of planet Earth." The static went away and half the people in the room screamed. "As of this moment, you are all a part of the Interplanetary Defense Empire. Welcome, you will be subjugated as our slaves, but do not fear. We are here to protect you," the green man's face changed into a smile but all anyone heard was being turned into slaves and they all screamed and ran away. They didn't need to be at work today, it was time to go home.

_Guys, what are you doing. It can't be, you couldn't have all lost already. No! You've all trained too hard for that._

The tone of voice on the tv changed and Bulma got shivers, "There are those among you who wish to fight us. Some of you think you can win, you are very, very wrong. This is our universe, it is controlled by us. You have been given the _privilege_, to live in it. Don't waste it."

The tv cut off and Bulma looked out the window, "Oh please, save us."

sc

Trunks was powering up, already a Super Saiyan and his pupil was by his side ready to charge in with him. "What is there to talk about? They're here, we've always known this fight was coming, why delay any longer?"

"We need to think about this, we thought there was going to be no break between the time they came and the time when they started annihilating everyone on the planet. So why are they just sitting there?" Tien asked looking around.

"There's no rush to run into this battle and possibly get defeated. We need to scout, find out just how many of them there are." Gohan continued, "If we attack now they'll have the advantage in numbers and strength. "The plan has always been to wait for them to separate then crush them individually until only the strongest fighters remained and then we could team up on them, but now we can't separate the strong and the incredibly strong." Anna gulped realizing he didn't say 'the weak.' There were no weak fighters in this army.

"We've got them all in a cluster, if we attack now we could end this in one fell swoop," Trunks argued. "One blast, if we all put our entire strength into it we could crush them."

"And the planet at the same time," 18 mentioned giving the arrogant teen a glare. He was too much like his father, "Gohan and Tien are right, if we use all our strength in one attack and wind up not killing half of them they'll not only know where we are, but we'll have used up so much energy on them already." Trunks grunted and lowered down to his base state, there was no winning this fight. Strax was disappointed too but Umara was looking around shocked.

"What, we're all just going to sit here with them right there?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing. _These are the same people whose families and friends were slaughtered by those very same people? How can they,_ she looked at Gohan who was being the voice of reason but there were lines in his forehead because he was holding himself back from charging forward.

She turned to Trunks who was shaking violently, his fists were clenched and he looked like he still might charge in there as soon as someone told him it was okay. "We need to know what they're planning but charging in there will get us killed without a doubt." 18 announced.

"This is going to be difficult," Gohan scratched the back of his head thinking hard but smiling, "However, we should take this slow. We'll go back to Capsule Corp., there we'll figure out our next move. It's risky staying out here," the others felt it too as three different groups of twenty started going different directions from the spot the ships landed.

They weren't moving fast in fact they were on foot, their missions: conquer all humans.

**A/n** Took me a few days to write this but I felt it had to be pretty long to make up for lost time. Are the kids ready? Can the humans defend themselves from the invasion? Will Earth be enslaved?

Guest chapter 4 . Aug 31

Original enemy and great story. You have a amazing talent at writing. Please update soon.

**Thanks, I'll continue updating this story. It's a lot of fun to write! Glad you enjoy. **


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